MPs have demanded answers from banking chiefs following a Barclays IT failure.

The Treasury committee has written to nine CEOs asking what they have done to prevent similar outages over the past two years.

Barclays customers were unable to access services for up to three days from January 31, covering the HMRC self-assessment deadline and a common time for wages to be paid into personal accounts. 

Committee chairwoman Dame Meg Hillier MP said: “For it to happen at a major bank such as Barclays at such a crucial time of year is either bad luck or bad planning. 

“The rapidly declining number of high street bank branches makes the impact of IT outages even more painful; that’s why I’ve decided to write to some of our biggest banks and building societies.”

Bosses at Allied Irish Bank, Bank of Ireland, Barclays, Danske, HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group, Nationwide Building Society, NatWest Group and Santander have until February 26 to respond.