Customers in Kent struggled to check their balances this morning after several major banking websites crashed.

Online banking for Halifax, Lloyds and Bank of Scotland went down in the early hours, meaning people were unable to check their accounts via their smartphones or computers.

It affected people living in Kent, London, Birmingham and other parts of the UK.

And despite the firms promising to get the systems back up and running soon, it didn't stop customers hitting out, with some fearing their payments will be affected.

One woman, from Rochester, who repeatedly tried to log in was told to try again later due to 'technical difficulties'.

The 47-year-old, who didn't want to be named, said: "It's bill day for me today and I need to log on to my app so I can see what's what and find out exactly how much money I have.

"It's very frustrating not being able to just check your balance. I hope it is sorted soon."

Others took to Twitter to vent their frustration.

Tweeting to the Halifax team, one user said: "I know you say you're working on this online and app banking issue but it has been over seven hours now? Update with estimated time please?"

Another said: "Great way to start a new year. app and site down are my payments going to go through?"

A statement from @LloydsBank read at the time: "We know our customers are having issues with internet and mobile banking.

"We're sorry about this and we're working to have it back to normal soon."

Halifax also released the same statement.

The issues were resolved mid afternoon.

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