Greggs stores across the UK have been hit by technical issues preventing them from accepting payments, forcing some to close.

Some of the baker's North East stores - including branches in Newcastle - have been forced to temporarily close as IT outages affected sales.

Others asked customers to place orders outside using the Greggs mobile app before food could be given to them.

Stores in cities including London, Manchester, Cardiff and Glasgow have reportedly been affected, with customers unable to purchase items.

On social media, some customers said their local chain was only able to accept cash payments, with others complaining that payments could not be made at all.

A Greggs spokesperson said: “We are currently experiencing issues accepting payments in our shops.

“We are working to resolve this as soon as possible.”

One City of London shop taped a makeshift sign to its door, telling customers: “We currently have an issue with our tills which means we can’t take cash or card payments right now.”

The Ludgate Hill shop sign was headed: “Oh Crumbs!”

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On Saturday, outages to payment systems prevented Sainsbury’s and Tesco stores across the country from accepting contactless card payments and issuing home deliveries.

On Friday, McDonald’s suffered a “global technology system outage” which the fast-food chain said had not been directly “caused by a cybersecurity event”.

Greggs operates more than 2,450 shops across the UK.