A major Google Cloud outage in its London region disrupted several online services on Tuesday, including British digital bank Revolut, leaving some customers unable to make payments or reach their money.
Google confirmed the problem on its service health dashboard, saying it was experiencing “elevated errors and intermittent network failures” across some services at its UK cloud facility, known as europe-west2, the BBC reported. Google said its Western European facilities were experiencing disruptions and apologised to everyone affected, The News reported.
A source familiar with the matter told Reuters that Revolut’s outage stemmed from the Google Cloud disruption. It remains uncertain whether every outage reported on Tuesday was linked.
Revolut customers locked out
Revolut users said they could not log in to the app, seeing a message reading “Something went wrong” and an instruction to try again later.
“We are currently experiencing a service disruption affecting multiple features, which may result in some services being inaccessible,” Revolut wrote on X. “Our engineering team is actively working to restore full service as quickly as possible. We appreciate your patience and apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.”
- Reports: outage monitor Downdetector recorded more than 1,500 user reports of problems with Revolut shortly after 08:00 BST (12:00 Pakistan time)
- Services hit: a page on Revolut’s website showed card payments, transfers, ATM withdrawals and customer support as “partially unavailable”
- Customers: according to its website, Revolut has more than 80 million customers worldwide; it did not say whether the problems were global
“We are currently experiencing a service disruption affecting multiple services,” a Revolut spokesperson told the BBC. “We can confirm that all our customers’ money and data are safe.”
“We’ve been working to fix the issue since it was identified this morning and apologise to anyone affected and for any inconvenience caused,” the spokesperson added. Revolut declined to say what had caused the problems.
On social media, some users criticised the company, saying they had been left unable to access funds, make payments or contact customer support.
Other banks affected
Downdetector also showed hundreds of reports of problems at UK lenders Lloyds Bank and HSBC, property website Rightmove and postal service Royal Mail, Dawn reported, citing Reuters. Google later said the outage, which also hit court video links, was caused by a “power event”, the BBC reported.
Customers of Lloyds Bank and Bank of Scotland, both owned by Lloyds Banking Group, also reported problems. A Lloyds spokesperson said its app was working normally, but “we understand some are having issues with certain online services this morning”.
“We are aware of similar issues affecting other organisations and are monitoring the situation closely,” the spokesperson said.
The cloud behind the apps
Google Cloud powers internet infrastructure for many online services, which is why a fault in a single region can affect banks and apps at the same time. Revolut is one of several “neobanks” that grew up to rival traditional banks with a digital-first approach.
Why it matters
Tuesday’s outage is a reminder that when one cloud provider fails, the banks and apps built on it can go down together, cutting customers off from their own money. Read our report on the race to fund AI giants.
This article draws on reporting by the BBC, Dawn, The News and Reuters.
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