A widespread outage struck Arvest Bank’s online and mobile banking platforms on April 25, 2025, affecting thousands of customers across Arkansas, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Missouri.
The disruption, which began around 3 a.m. ET, reportedly prevented users from accessing their accounts, paying bills, or making transactions, sparking frustration among the bank’s 800,000+ customers.
Arvest, headquartered in Bentonville, Arkansas, is one of the largest and oldest banking institutions in the state, making the scale of this outage particularly significant.
Although these types of issues are unacceptable given the current state of tech advancements, consumers should consider keeping their funds in many different bank accounts that are supported by other reputable banking service providers. This way, unforeseen emergencies like this one cannot prevent clients from carrying out important transactions at the time that they need to (like paying rent or utility bills).
According to reports from Downdetector, a website that tracks online service interruptions, the majority of issues—approximately 60%—were related to mobile login failures, with 26% tied to online banking and 14% to general login problems.
Customers encountered error messages claiming their login credentials were incorrect, despite entering accurate information.
The outage also delayed Arvest’s nightly processing, further complicating account access.
As usual, social media platforms, particularly X, became a sounding board for customer grievances, with many expressing their inability to pay rent, make car payments, or access paychecks.
Arvest Bank acknowledged the issue in a statement posted via social media, assuring customers that their teams were working diligently to resolve the problem.
The bank emphasized that the outage stemmed from an internal system issue, not a cyberattack or unauthorized access.
Tara Muck, a spokesperson for Arvest, clarified that a routine system update on Thursday evening caused some customers to see incorrect account information on the Arvest Go mobile app.
While initial reports suggested users might have viewed other customers’ data, Muck refuted this, stating the displayed information was simply unrelated to the users’ accounts.
The bank temporarily disabled certain online functions to address the issue, with services fully restored by 4 p.m. on Friday.
Despite the digital disruption, Arvest confirmed that its physical branches, ATMs, and Live Teller services remained operational, allowing customers to conduct transactions in person.
The bank directed users to its website to locate nearby branches and ATMs.
However, for many reliant on the convenience of mobile banking, the outage underscored the vulnerabilities / shortcomings of digital financial systems.
This incident adds to a growing list of tech outages affecting large financial institutions, with banks like Chase, HSBC, and Lloyds reporting similar issues in recent years.
As reliance on online banking grows, such disruptions highlight the need for robust systems to ensure uninterrupted access to funds.
Arvest’s response as well as restoration of services mitigated some customer discontent, but the major outage has understandably led to calls for greater reliability and transparency.
For now, Arvest customers are back online, but the incident serves as a stark reminder of the significant challenges facing digital banking platforms in an increasingly connected world.