If as cahoot state "it was a power cut" and the standby generator failed to kick in, the question I would like to ask is how long does it take to hire another portable industrial generator as this happened 8am Wednesday and its now 10pm Thursday and I still cannot log in to my account.

L Monday, Bristol, UK

22.52 - the site is STILL down. This is unacceptable from a bank who's sole channel the internet. Add to that the awful lack of communication from their management, especially at a time when people are nervous about their financial investments.
An operational and PR disaster. HSBC here I come.

Ben J, London,

Could not pay the wages on my company today thanks to inept bank with no back up generators I presume. My staff discusted. Also turned a creditor away as could not pay money as it fell due. This is highly damaging and could result in suppliers having a confidence failure in my company.
MD Benye UK

stephen pearce, Cheshire, england

A Company running a mission-critical computer system should have a Disaster Recovery strategy that is capable of bringing the system back up in a matter of hours. I don't believe that it is just a power cut - this could not account for the system being down for two days.

Peter Ellington, Lidlington, Bucks

Somethings not right in Cahoot. At 1100hrs today I was told all would be well after lunch. At 1755hrs I was told that they were busy with admin in taking over All & Leicster and Brad & Bingley. They couldn`t even given the balance on my account. I`m worried...very worried...I do not believe them

A H Thomas, Swansea, Wales

Well, it's 22:25 and I still can not log on. Thank fully I am still able to accss my cash at the hole in the wall and my card is being accepted. I am worried what DD's have not gone through and will I get charged late payment fees?
This is bad management Cahoot, no other word for it.

Helen, Bangor, Gwynedd

Are uninterruptable power suplies not being used here?
alp uk

A.L.Pearson, Limavady, Londonderry

22:30 pm on thursday 16th and I still can't get access. This is totally unacceptable and is likely to provoke a run on cahoot

Phil Rees, Winchester, UK

Still out at 21.23; unbelievable. Heads should roll. I am sure the local chippy has better back up arrangements. How can it call itself a bank if one cannot access one's accounts either on line or by phone? The M.D. talks as if we were playing Monopoly.

Lorna Lancaster, Jordans, Bucks

Given everything that's going on this has been incredibly mismanaged. The statement from Mr Timms doesn't tell us why the site is down and one has to search further on the internet to find a reason. I for one would be relieved to be told that there was a power cut!

Toby Benzecry, London,

over 48 hours on, and I still can't get access to my money or anyone to talk to. Is this the end of Internet banking? It is for me.

Keith, Tavira, Portugal

HE he he he! Three words are all you need.
Manana. Casi. Spain.

Matt, Alicante, Spain

I thought it strange that an undisclosed problem 'essential maintenance' had, without warning to its customers, rendered the website inoperative. It is now 18.45hrs on the second day and the site is still down - despite 'a reassuring message' from the chairman. E-mailed Cahoot yesterday - no reply.

B Taylor, Nottingham, UK.

An Internet bank like Cahoot should have adequate disaster recovery which they clearly haven't.
I for one will be seriously questioning their ability to operate this kind of service. It gives little confidence to the consumer. Lets hope they don't treat security with the same careless approach.

John, Nottingham, UK

My sources inside the company reveal that this was indeed an old fashioned disastor. The power cut happened in Spain, the standby generator failed to kick in and an attempt to move to DR at another data centre failed due to incorrect procedures being enacted. Systems are housed in Spain.

phil may, london, uk

Remeber Icesave, a few days before it went bust...? They too had 'techncal problems whic were nothing to worry about'..

Wada Lan, santander,

surely a power cut would be fixed by now. Whats the bet that when the power went down it corrupted something and now they are franticly trying to fix things. Shouldnt internet banks be regulated to make sure that a power cut will not stop people from accessing their accounts??

Kimbo Slice, London, UK

Spain has millions of houses for sale with no buyers. It's huge buiding industry is about to collapse and a million of so Brits stranded in their Costa houses, totally trapped. This could be the first really big black hole in europe.

m wilson, bidache, france

I am panicking - this is part of a much larger problem... Santander needs to put another 50p in the meter!

John, Chester,

Damn right people should panic. My nerve went early this morning and I contacted the FSA for any news. They didn't report that Cahoot has failed as a banking provider so I Emailed Cahoot with my concern as to them being fit for purpose. I received a reply 4 hours ago, but they are still offline!

Nigel Kerwin, Bradford, UK

Obviously 13amp fuses don't work in Madrid, or is another Euro required for the meter?

Elaine, london, england

Is this a joke? Surely they have measures in place for power cuts! I work for an online hotel company and we have all sorts to disaster recovery fail safes in place to ensure we keep the website up at all times at any cost!

I'm starting to panic that this is an excuse for a larger problem.

Mark, Cambridge, UK

What sort of internet bank allows its servers to be affected by a power cut? Shouldn't all this type of equipment have a redundant backup power supply, like all other well managed data centres?

Steven, Edinburgh, UK