Tesco Bank has been forced to suspend its online transactions after fraudulent criminal activity was spotted on thousands of its customer accounts over the weekend.

A total of 40,000 current accounts were hit by suspicious transactions. Money was pinched from 20,000 of the affected current accounts, Tesco Bank said on Monday morning.

“We apologise for the worry and inconvenience that this has caused for customers, and can only stress that we are taking every step to protect our customers’ accounts,” said the bank’s chief Benny Higgins.