Banks and courts affected by disruption as Google apologises for cloud outage
Google has apologised after an outage in its cloud network disrupted a host of online services, including banks and the courts.
Revolut, which has millions of UK customers, was among the firms reporting problems caused by the incident, while the cloud video platform used in trials by courts across the country also went down. Google said a “power event” caused the outage in the “Europe-west2” region, believed to be London, since late evening on Monday. It said this was causing multiple cloud services to experience errors and intermittent network failures. The London-based region appeared to be Google Cloud’s only UK location and the only area to be experiencing disruption. This has a knock-on effect on businesses that rely on the infrastructure for services such as computing, data management and services, and to power everyday systems. By early afternoon on Tuesday, Google said it was seeing the “recovery of services for most workloads” in the region. “We apologise to all who are affected by the disruption.” It said a possible workaround for affected customers is to “try to migrate their workload impacted to another available location (zone or region)”. The tech giant is expected to provide another update on the situation on Tuesday afternoon. Revolut said multiple systems were down or partially unavailable including card payments, transfers, cash withdrawals and signing into accounts. More than 1,500 people reported problems with Revolut earlier on Tuesday, according to to the Downdetector platform. A spokesperson said: “We are currently experiencing a service disruption affecting multiple services. “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.” HM Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS) was experiencing issues with its cloud video platform which it uses for secure video-links to court hearings in England and Wales. Mr Justice Bennathan, the judge for the rape and sexual assault trial of Russell Brand at Southwark Crown Court in London, said there had been “problems with Google” but that it was back up and running. Journalists using the platform to observe cases reported it had begun working shortly after Google’s noon update. Hundreds of Lloyds Bank and HSBC users were also reporting issues to Downdetector, as well as platforms like Royal Mail, DPD and Rightmove. Budgeting app Emma told customers it was down because of the Google Cloud outage. By around 2pm on Tuesday, the company told customers on X: “Emma is up and running again after this morning’s Google Cloud power outage in London. “Your data and money were safe throughout. “Some balances may take a little while to refresh. Thanks for your patience.” Halifax, which is owned by Lloyds Banking Group, responded to a user on X to say it was “aware some customers are having issues with our app and online”, adding: “We’re sorry about this and are working hard to fix it.” Sam Richardson, editor of Which? Money, said people will be “rightly concerned” about the outages which could “prevent people making essential purchases or even paying their bills”. He added: “Tech and banking outages have become increasingly frequent in recent years, and the impact can be widespread when they happen. “It’s worth considering having back-ups in place in the event your main provider goes down – for example a card with a different bank, and a small amount of emergency cash to tide you over should you be unable to make card payments.”
Published: by Radio NewsHub