LONDON (Reuters) -British banks Lloyds and Barclays on Monday apologised to customers who suffered service outages over the past 48 hours, the latest in a string of such disruptions in recent years as lenders push their customers to bank online.

People with Barclays accounts were unable to access their funds or use online banking due to a technical issue over the weekend - the bank has now apologised

Barclays has issued an apology to its customers following technical issues that disrupted services and payments over the weekend. The bank has confirmed the outage has been rectified and that any payments delayed due to the IT problem in recent days have now been processed.

Halifax and Lloyds customers are also told to contact their bank directly to request compensation. They can do so via phone, the bank’s online live chat service, or by visiting a branch. If you are not happy with the compensation offer, then your next step is to contact the Financial Ombudsman Service.

Barclays customers have been left stranded abroad and say they have even unable to buy food for newborn babies as a major IT outage entered its second day.

UK regulators are in close contact with Barclays Plc after a IT problem left thousands of customers locked out of their accounts for several days, according to people familiar with the matter.

Barclays has apologised to customers after technical problems caused disruption to services and payments for several hours.

Barclays previously stated affected customers were viewing outdated balances and payments were not being displayed. A Barclays spokesperson said after services returned to normal