Three Banks, One Weekend, Hours Without Account Access
The past weekend (September 18–21, 2026) was an unusually nerve-wracking one for customers of several major Polish banks — not because of financial markets, but because of ordinary, if unusually concentrated, scheduled maintenance windows. VeloBank switched off online banking overnight from Friday to Saturday (September 18/19, 23:30–8:10), PKO BP blocked access to online banking, the IKO app, and phone banking for more than 12 hours on Sunday (September 20, 00:01–12:30), and ING Bank Śląski announced its own maintenance work overnight from Sunday to Monday (September 20/21, 0:01–3:00), which limited the functioning of ATMs and deposit machines in the ING/Planet Cash network. For many customers, this meant that within a single weekend, their main channel for accessing money simply stopped working — sometimes with no backup option at hand.
Why now, and why so many banks at once
Banking maintenance windows are nothing new — banks regularly update their systems, roll out security patches, and modernize infrastructure, usually overnight or on weekends when transaction volume is lowest. What is more striking, though, is how frequent and intense these windows have become this year — and the fact that three major institutions clustered their outages into one short window shows that the pressure to modernize banking infrastructure is clearly rising across the sector. Banks must simultaneously implement regulatory requirements around payment security, adapt to EU instant-payments rules, and close gaps in internal control systems — the very kind of gaps the financial regulator recently cited when upholding a 15-million-zloty fine against one large bank. A side effect of this intense infrastructure work is precisely these increasingly frequent, if well-advertised, interruptions in account access.
What customers actually lose during such an outage
In practice, the scope of restrictions varies by bank, but typically includes: no login to online or mobile banking, no ability to make transfers by phone, mobile authorization replaced with SMS codes, and — what many find most painful — blocked mobile-payment transfers to a phone number and code-based instant payments. Card payments in physical stores and contactless payments via phone or smartwatch usually keep working, as do ATM cash withdrawals — though in ING's specific window it was actually ATMs and deposit machines that were most exposed to disruption. This shows there is no single universal scenario — each maintenance window has its own "risk profile," so it pays to read your own bank's actual notice rather than assume everything outside the app will work as normal.
Why this is more than a minor inconvenience
For someone planning a quiet weekend with no major transactions, a few hours of downtime is at most a mild irritation. The problem arises when the outage coincides with a loan installment deadline, an urgent transfer, or a situation where an instant mobile payment is the only quick way to send someone money. The more our everyday finances depend on a single channel — one app, one bank — the more painfully we feel every moment it is unavailable. That is a solid argument for not keeping all your funds and all your payment options in one place. Having an account at a second bank, even just as a backup, can save a weekend when your main bank happens to be "asleep." If you're considering opening such a backup account, it's worth checking the current personal accounts ranking — when choosing, pay attention not only to fees but also to how often a given bank schedules maintenance and whether it gives adequate advance notice.
How to prepare for the next wave of outages
Banks generally publish notices about planned maintenance several days in advance — in the mobile app, on their website, or through the media. It's worth building the habit of checking such notices before a weekend, especially if you're planning larger purchases, bill payments, or travel. Good practice also includes handling important transfers ahead of time, keeping a small cash reserve on hand for the coming days, and — if you're saving — considering spreading funds across different products and institutions rather than keeping everything in one account at one bank. This is also a good moment to remember that part of your savings is worth keeping in a form that doesn't require daily app access — such as a term deposit — while keeping the rest in an account you can use day-to-day, after comparing offers on the savings accounts list.
The bigger picture: regulators now look at these outages differently too
It's worth noting that banks operating in the EU have, since last year, been subject to the EU's DORA regulation (Digital Operational Resilience Act), which requires financial institutions to systematically test the resilience of their IT systems, report major operational incidents to financial supervisors, and maintain contingency plans for disruptions to key services. That is why maintenance notices today tend to be more detailed and arrive with more advance notice than they did just a few years ago — banks are now obligated to inform customers ahead of time rather than simply explaining themselves after the fact. From a customer's perspective, that's actually good news: a cluster of outages within a single week can look alarming, but it is also evidence that banks are genuinely investing in the modernization regulators require of them, instead of putting it off indefinitely.
What you should do
The weekend wave of outages at PKO BP, VeloBank, and ING is not a sign that something is wrong with your money — it's a normal, if unusually concentrated, part of maintaining banking systems. Still, it's worth treating as a reminder: check your bank's notices before the weekend, plan important transfers ahead of time, and consider keeping a backup account at another bank so a single maintenance window doesn't leave you without access to your money at the worst possible moment.