Google Cloud reported that its services are recovering after a power event at a London data centre caused a major outage impacting UK banks, businesses, and court hearings. The technical disruption affected the europe-west2 data centre complex, impacting multiple services provided by the major cloud infrastructure operator. We’ve been working to fix the issue since it was identified this morning and apologise to anyone affected and for any inconvenience caused,” they said.
Revolut, Lloyds Bank, and HSBC confirmed operational disruptions on Tuesday morning following thousands of online user reports. While the financial institutions did not explicitly tie their technical difficulties to the cloud failure, Google issued an apology to everyone affected by the disruption. According to he, Such disruptions can have “serious financial consequences” for small businesses like his own.
A wide range of popular British platforms experienced difficulties during the incident, with users highlighting problems accessing services provided by Royal Mail, DPD, and e-bike operator Forest.
The HM Courts and Tribunals Service confirmed it was monitoring a technical issue affecting the video conferencing platform utilised for remote court hearings.
Banking customers encountered severe obstacles, including difficulties accessing funds abroad and finalising property purchases. Rachael Ellen, a 25-year-old Revolut user based in Glasgow, told reporters she could not pay for parking at a shopping centre or view transactions from a relative because her account failed to function properly. With customers reporting problems ranging from being unable to access funds abroad to struggling to complete a property purchase, banks appeared to be among the most badly affected. This left me in a difficult situation as I had no way to access the money I needed at the time. It’s frustrating not knowing where the payment is or when I’ll receive it,” Rachael added. Meaning orders that should have been dispatched today were at risk of being delayed,” he said, we were also unable to book parcels onto DPD’s system for collection.
Platform monitoring services recorded more than 1,500 issue reports concerning Revolut shortly after 08:00 BST. A company representative later stated that the difficulties stemmed from a third-party problem, reassuring users that all customer funds and data remained secure.
Customers utilising Lloyds Bank, Halifax, and Bank of Scotland experienced similar disruptions across online banking platforms. A spokesperson for Lloyds Banking Group indicated later on Tuesday that underlying technical problems had been resolved, with normal service expected to resume shortly.
Google stated on its service health dashboard that issues had been mitigated for the majority of users, leaving only a small number still impacted. The firm confirmed it will publish an incident analysis after completing an internal investigation.
Small businesses also reported significant operational setbacks. Guy Baybutt of the Preston-based family business The Veg Box Company explained that the inability to access website ordering systems and DPD dispatch tools threatened fresh produce deliveries and resulted in lost sales.
Baybutt noted that unexpected technical failures outside company control create serious financial strains for smaller enterprises lacking the resources of larger corporations to absorb sudden revenue drops. Although operations eventually resumed, he highlighted the frustration caused by the downtime.
The incident occurred exactly one year after an Amazon Web Services cloud outage knocked more than 1,000 sites offline across the UK. Industry experts noted that the latest disruption highlights the heavy economic reliance on a small number of dominant cloud computing providers.
Prof Feng Li, associate dean for research and innovation at Bayes Business School, observed that major cloud systems remain highly complex and prone to inevitable failures. He emphasised that public impact depends on the geographic spread of outages, the speed of recovery, and the availability of viable customer alternatives. How quickly services recover and whether customers have workable alternatives,” he added, what matters is how far they spread.
