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Customers of Nationwide are facing another round of delays on payments after a queuing system was installed by the building society.

It said the move was needed to manage the system during a surge in payments on the first working day of the year.

Customers experienced payment problems during the festive period, although Nationwide said the latest issue was unconnected.

Customers have been expressing their anger on social media.

One said the recent run of problems meant the service was "nothing short of abysmal".

A Nationwide spokeswoman said: "As a result of extremely high volumes of transactions on the first working day of the year we took the decision to temporarily queue inbound faster payments.

"This has been done to ensure we can manage and process those payments, which were taking much longer than normal due to the numbers received."

The delays affect a number of payments made digitally to individuals, but Nationwide said bulk payments such as wages, direct debits and standing orders should not be affected.

"We hope to get our systems back to normal and apologise for any inconvenience caused as a result of these delays. All other services are working normally," the spokeswoman added.

"Members can continue to use their cards to pay for goods and services, access the internet bank and banking app and withdraw cash from ATMs."

She urged customers not to try to resend payments, but gave no estimate as to when faster payments would return to their normal speed of about two hours or less to complete.

The delays come after various problems affected Nationwide's systems in recent weeks, leaving some people unable to send or receive money, with some waiting for wages at a time of year when they are already financially stretched.

The building society said anyone facing charges as a result of late payments should get in touch to discuss their situation.