Google Cloud Outage Disrupts Banks and Digital Services

Google Cloud services were disrupted across parts of Europe after what the company described as a “power event” at a London-based data centre. Google reported an outage in its europe-west2-b zone, beginning shortly after 6am UK time, and said customers could experience elevated errors and intermittent network problems. Engineers were investigating and working to resolve the incident. Google’s status page did not report serious issues in other regions. The disruption reportedly affected a range of services and organisations, including banks and websites. Customers of major UK banks reported difficulties accessing their accounts. Revolut said multiple services were experiencing disruption but reassured customers that their money and data were safe. Halifax also said customers were having problems with its app and online services. Court live streams were among the other services affected. The UK Courts and Tribunals Service acknowledged an issue with its Cloud Video Platform, which is used for some remote hearings. Reports said the problem affected streams including the ongoing trial of comedian Russell Brand. British media outlets also reported issues at Royal Mail, Microsoft and delivery company DPD. The article describes a developing outage with consequences for services that rely on Google Cloud, while noting that Google’s technical teams were investigating and that the disruption appeared concentrated in parts of Europe.

Revolut experienced a major worldwide service outage on 20 October, leaving millions of customers unable to access its app and other banking services. Reports began appearing in the morning from people who could not log in, access their money or pay with Revolut cards; some card transactions were declined, while other users encountered error messages. The disruption was reported across multiple countries, including the UK, Ireland, France, Spain and Japan, although it remained unclear whether every customer was affected. Revolut said that several services were disrupted and that it had been working to resolve the problem since it was identified. The company reassured customers that their money and data were safe and apologised for the inconvenience. It did not provide an estimate for when services would return, leaving affected users uncertain about when they could again access funds or make payments with their cards. The article also describes Revolut’s scale and business. It calls the UK-based digital bank Europe’s most valuable startup, with a reported valuation of $121.1 billion—higher than traditional banking groups Barclays, Lloyds and Santander. Revolut says it has more than 80 million retail customers and is adding roughly a million users every 17 days, putting it on course to reach 100 million customers by mid-2027. Its largest markets are the UK, Spain and France, and more than 750,000 companies use Revolut Business. The story outlines features that helped attract customers, including competitive currency exchange, fee-free spending and ATM withdrawals, and fast, low-cost international transfers. Higher-tier memberships also offer benefits such as medical insurance, airport lounge access and trip-delay coverage.

A power outage at a Google Cloud data centre in London caused significant network failures on Tuesday, disrupting services used by several UK banks and other businesses. Google said the incident began at 0608 GMT and affected multiple services in its europe-west2 region, which covers its London data centre. The company attributed the disruption to a “power event” and initially estimated that services would be fully restored by around 1300 GMT. Revolut customers encountered problems with ATM withdrawals, bank transfers and card top-ups. A source close to the matter linked the digital bank’s service disruption to the Google Cloud failures. Revolut said it was working to resolve the issue and apologised to affected customers, while assuring them that their money and data were safe. Lloyds and HSBC also confirmed problems for customers. Lloyds said some people were having difficulty using its app and online banking, while HSBC reported difficulties accessing its services and said it would monitor the situation. HSBC noted that other organisations were affected as well. Reports to the internet service tracker Downdetector indicated that disruptions extended beyond banking, with hundreds of reports involving businesses including property website Rightmove and postal service Royal Mail. The incident illustrates how an outage at a major cloud provider can affect services across multiple organisations. The article reports Google’s recovery estimate and the responses from affected companies, but does not provide a final confirmation that all services had been restored.