MILAN, April 11 (Reuters) - Up to three million

customers of Italy's Banca Sella and its digital bank Hype have

been unable to access their accounts online this week due to

disruption which the regional lender said was caused by an IT

update provided by Oracle.

Banca Sella said on Thursday the outage was not related to

cybersecurity issues and does not affect other banking services

such as the use of payment cards.

Cash transactions and payments can be made at Sella branches

which will have extended opening hours to 6 p.m. (1600 GMT)

until the incident is resolved, it added.

Banca Sella has around 1.3 million customers. Hype, which is

a joint venture with the challenger bank illimity, has

around 1.7 million customers.

"Our technicians are working with Oracle, which has been the

supplier of the Sella Group's operating system for more than 20

years, to restore full functionality," Banca Sella said in an

online statement.

"Several steps have been taken, but at the moment, the

situation is still not back to normal," it added, saying it was

unable to say when full online services would be restored.

Oracle had no immediate comment.