AIB says it has restored services for customers using its internet services and tablet banking.

This follows a period of hours on Thursday when AIB’s internet, tablet and mobile banking services were experiencing technical difficulties.

It is not yet clear what caused the problem with the bank, which is 99.9 per cent State owned, saying its technical support teams were investigating the issue.

A statement said: “We currently have normal levels of customer usage on the AIB mobile banking app.”

Some customers were still experiencing difficulty getting access to banking via the app by early evening, but the bank says this has now been resolved as well.

AIB had earlier apologised for the inconvenience caused by the disruption in services.

It is understood that the problem affected AIB's services in the Republic but did not impact on its network in Northern Ireland. ATMs and lodgement machines were not affected by the technology glitch.

AIB has more than one million active users of its online services with some 530,000 mobile users.