Google Cloud Outage Disrupts UK Banks, Retailers and Delivery Services

LONDON, Oct 20: A disruption affecting Google Cloud’s infrastructure in western Europe caused outages at several UK and international online services on Tuesday, affecting banking apps, retailers and delivery companies.

Financial services providers Revolut, Lloyds Bank and HSBC were among the services reported to be experiencing problems, alongside home improvement retailer Screwfix and delivery company DPD, according to Downdetector, which tracks user reports of service disruptions.

Revolut customers reportedly faced difficulties accessing their accounts and making card payments. The digital banking platform, which serves more than 80 million customers worldwide, including 13 million in the UK, said some services were unavailable due to a “service disruption”.

Google Cloud confirmed problems affecting multiple services in its western European infrastructure, with the disruption reportedly involving its London-based facilities.

“We are experiencing an issue with multiple services in europe-west2 beginning on Monday,” Google Cloud said in a statement.

The company said its engineering team was investigating the issue and apologised to affected customers.

“Our product and engineering teams are actively working to restore full availability,” Google said, warning that customers could experience connection failures and delays.

The company also said affected customers might encounter session connection failures when accessing Google Security Operations, as well as delays in platform workflows.

Google said no workaround was available at the time and that investigations into the cause of the disruption were continuing.