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.

Lloyds and Halifax banks were hit by service outages today after Barclays customers saw major problems over the weekend. The high street banks, which are part of the same company, saw problems spike at around 7am and last for around three hours, though both are now running again as normal.

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Barclays previously stated affected customers were viewing outdated balances and payments were not being displayed.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