A number of Ulster Bank customers in Northern Ireland may find their payments delayed today, Wednesday, after the bank's parent, Royal Bank of Scotland, reported that 600,000 payments went missing after a technical glitch.

A spokeswoman for Ulster Bank in Dublin said that no customers in the Republic of Ireland have been impacted by the issue.

The bank, which has been besieged with technical difficulties in recent years, said an issue with its "overnight process" meant some customers of NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland, Ulster Bank and private bank Coutts had not seen credits or direct debits applied to their accounts.

The issue is now understood to have been identified and fixed, but the bank is still working to retrieve missing payments.

A spokesperson for the bank said:

“We are aware of an issue with our overnight process which has resulted in some of our Northern Ireland customers not having credits or direct debits being applied to their accounts. We are working to get this resolved as quickly as possible and apologise to customers for the inconvenience caused”.

Customers in Northern Ireland who need access to their cash will be able to do so if they bring ID into a branch.

“We will ensure no customers are left out of pocket as a result of this issue,” the bank said.