Banking Chaos Before Christmas: La Banque Postale and Other French Banks Hit by Second Major Outage in Three Days

Major online banking services across France, including La Banque Postale, have been hit by a widespread outage just days before Christmas — the second incident in less than a week. Here’s what’s happening and what you should know.

For the second time in just three days, La Banque Postale and several other major French banks have faced nationwide online disruptions, leaving thousands of customers unable to access their accounts or complete daily banking operations.

The outage began early Monday morning, the 22nd December, and is especially frustrating for users trying to manage their holiday finances or complete last-minute Christmas shopping.

What Services Are Down?

Customers have reported that:

The La Banque Postale website and mobile app are inaccessible.
The La Poste group’s related services — including Colissimo tracking and Digiposte, its digital vault — are also affected.
Caisse d’Épargne and Banque Populaire, both part of the BPCE group, show similar disruptions, according to tracking site DownDetector.

Many users took to social media, reporting that they could not log into their banking apps since early morning. One customer wrote, “I can’t connect to my Caisse d’Épargne app since 6 a.m. What’s going on?” — a sentiment echoed by many others across France.

Possible Cyberattack Behind the Outage

While La Banque Postale has described the issue as a “technical incident”, several cybersecurity analysts and tech news outlets, including Clubic, suggest it may be the result of a DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack.

This type of cyberattack floods servers with massive traffic, overwhelming systems and rendering them temporarily unusable. Authorities have not yet confirmed this theory, but the timing and scale of the outage point toward a significant coordinated disruption.

Second Major Incident in a Week

This is not the first time La Banque Postale has faced severe technical problems this month.
On Saturday, December 20, the same services were offline for several hours between 4 p.m. and 9 p.m. due to what was then also called a technical glitch.

At the time, the bank assured customers that payments made via card or SMS authentication still worked, and that virements (bank transfers) through third-party payment systems like WERO remained functional.

If this latest disruption confirms to be an ongoing cyber incident, it raises serious questions about the digital resilience of major French banking institutions — particularly during a peak period when financial and postal activity is at its highest.

Impact on Customers and Businesses

This outage couldn’t have come at a worse time. With millions across France preparing for the holidays:

Many clients are unable to access their funds or check balances.
Small businesses depending on online transactions through these banks face delays in receiving payments.
Post and delivery services are struggling to issue package updates, adding pressure to Christmas logistics.

Even though in-person card payments and withdrawals remain unaffected, the lack of online access threatens to cause serious inconvenience and erode customer confidence in digital banking reliability.

La Banque Postale’s Response

In a brief message on its website, La Banque Postale stated:

“Our teams are working hard to restore services as quickly as possible. We apologize for the inconvenience caused.”

While the message offers reassurance, many customers are demanding more transparency about the cause and prevention of such incidents, especially after two consecutive disruptions in less than three days.

What to Do If You’re Affected

If you are among the customers impacted by this outage:

Avoid repeated login attempts — it can worsen delays during a DDoS incident.
Monitor official social media channels of La Banque Postale and BPCE banks for updates.
Use your card or SMS authentication for essential transactions.
Do not click on suspicious “fix” emails or links, as cybercriminals often exploit such incidents to launch phishing scams.

A Wake-up Call for French Banking Security

These consecutive incidents highlight growing concerns about cybersecurity vulnerabilities in critical digital infrastructure. Banks and public services are under increasing pressure from hackers in recent years, as seen in similar large-scale disruptions across Europe.

Experts argue that strengthening DDoS protection and crisis communication should now be a top priority for French financial institutions moving into 2026.