Rush for money over the counter as centre's ATM machines crash

Bank customers struggled to get at their money when several cashpoints across the centre of Lincoln malfunctioned at the same time.

Huge queues formed as people lined up to access their cash the old fashioned way – by asking for it at the bank counter.

Among the banks affected were Nationwide, NatWest and Royal Bank of Scotland.

The exact nature of the problem, which began to occur at around 11.30am yesterday, has not been revealed but several of the organisations involved have apologised to customers who were affected.

One customer, who did not want to be identified, said: "I went to Nationwide first. People were queuing for the cashpoint but everyone who tried their card ended up walking away without any money.

"Then I went to Barclay and it was the same situation. No-one was getting any money. I tried myself and it flashed up with the message 'your request cannot be processed at this time'."

NatWest spokesman Ronan Kelleher said: "There was a technical issue impacting some of our systems for a short period of time this morning.

"We quickly identified and resolved the issue and we apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused our customers."

LINK spokesman Graham Mott said: "LINK were aware of a technical problem at Royal Bank of Scotland which was preventing some of their cardholders using other banks' ATMs.

"However the rest of the LINK network was working as normal and the problem has now been resolved."