My main bank is Cahoot. I'm reasonably happy with them - they pay a good rate of interest on a current account which is what drew me to them, but I like the fact I can do basically everything I need in their web interface at any time. However they seem to frequently announce periods of unavailability for card use or simliar. The latest announcement is:

Important update regarding use of your cahoot card: On Wednesday the 11th April between 21:00 and 22:00 there will be no service for cahoot card holders at Abbey, Link, and VISA ATM's. All point of sale transactions will be subject to a limit of £500 during this period. We apologise for any inconvenience caused by this essential maintenance.

This isn't the first time they've said I'd been unable to use my card for a certain period. They also seem to do (pre-announced) work on their website that causes it to be unavailable.

While none of this has ever caused me a problem (yet), I do find it quite surprising. I never have any such announcements from other banks that I use. Are Cahoot just more honest about when they're doing potentially service affecting work? Or do other banks just have systems that don't result in any downtime during upgrades? Does anyone elses bank do announcements in the same fashion?