Equity Bank customers were left unable to access some banking services on Thursday, October 1, after a technical disruption affected several of the lender’s digital and transaction channels.
The outage affected customers trying to use mobile banking, USSD services, ATMs and money transfer services, leaving some unable to complete transactions or access their accounts when they needed to use them.
Equity Bank later confirmed that its services were experiencing intermittent downtime. The bank said its technical team was working to restore normal operations and asked customers to bear with it as efforts to resolve the problem continued.
The disruption quickly became a major concern among customers, with complaints spreading across social media as users shared their experiences.
Some customers said they could not send or receive money, while others reported difficulties accessing their accounts and completing payments.
For customers who depend on their bank accounts for daily transactions, the outage created immediate challenges. Some users said they had payments and purchases to make but could not access their money or complete transactions through the affected channels.
The interruption also renewed questions about the reliability of banking systems, particularly when several services are affected at the same time.
Customers questioned why they could not turn to other Equity channels when mobile banking or one service was experiencing difficulties.
Some users also referred to previous service interruptions as they expressed frustration over the latest incident. They said repeated disruptions could make it difficult for customers to rely on digital banking services, especially when there are no immediate alternatives available.
Independent service monitoring data also recorded an incident affecting Equity Bank transactions in Kenya. The monitoring platform indicated that the disruption began around midnight and described transaction performance as a full outage during the period it was tracking the incident.
The timing and scale of the disruption placed the bank under pressure to restore services and communicate clearly with affected customers. For many users, the main issue was not simply the inconvenience but the inability to know when transactions would resume or whether pending payments had been successfully processed.
Customers also raised concerns about what could happen to transactions that were initiated shortly before or during the outage.
Some wanted assurance that failed or delayed transactions would not result in duplicate payments or other problems once the systems returned to normal.
The outage also created a security risk as frustrated customers looked for ways to regain access to their accounts. Equity Bank warned customers against sharing sensitive information with people claiming they could help restore their services.
The bank reminded customers not to disclose their passwords, PINs, one-time passwords or card details to anyone.
The warning came as customers searched for answers and solutions to the service disruption. Banking outages can also create opportunities for fraudsters to target customers who are already worried about their accounts.
By Thursday, the key concern for affected Equity Bank customers remained the restoration of normal services and the safe processing of transactions that had been interrupted.
