A rare disruption at Google Cloud’s London data-centre region affected banking apps, financial services and public-sector systems in the UK on Tuesday, October 20, after a power-related incident triggered network failures across multiple cloud services.
The outage affected Google’s europe-west2 region, which primarily serves customers in the UK and Ireland. Revolut, Halifax and ING Germany reported service problems, while users also experienced issues with some services operated by Lloyds Bank and HSBC. Britain’s court video-hearing system was also disrupted.
Google said the power event had been mitigated and that services were beginning to recover. However, the company warned that some customers might still be unable to create new workloads while recovery continued.
The incident highlighted the dependence of banking, government and commercial services on cloud infrastructure operated by a small number of technology companies.
Revolut, Halifax and Other Services Report Problems
Revolut experienced disruption affecting several services, including card payments and ATM withdrawals, according to Reuters. The digital bank reassured customers that their funds and personal data remained safe.
“We can confirm that all our customers’ money and data are safe,” Revolut said in a statement posted on X.
ING Germany reported problems with online banking logins and its mobile application. Halifax, part of Lloyds Banking Group, also acknowledged difficulties affecting some customers.
Lloyds said its application remained operational and customers could log in normally, although some online services were experiencing problems. Downdetector, which aggregates user-submitted outage reports, recorded complaints involving HSBC, Bank of Scotland, property website Rightmove, delivery company DPD, NHS England and Royal Mail.
The extent of the disruption varied across services. Reports on outage-tracking platforms indicate user experiences but do not, by themselves, establish that every reported problem was caused by the same incident.
The disruption also affected Britain’s Cloud Video Platform, used for remote court hearings across England and Wales. The Press Association reported that the system was unavailable during the morning, leaving some hearings delayed or unable to proceed as scheduled.
Google’s regional status information identified elevated errors and intermittent network failures across multiple services in europe-west2. The company did not immediately provide a detailed explanation of the underlying technical failure beyond identifying a power event.
Google Says Power Event Has Been Mitigated
Google said the power event had been contained and that its teams were prioritising the restoration of existing workloads. Its service update indicated that recovery was under way, although some functions could remain unavailable during the process.
The company also advised affected customers to consider moving workloads to another available zone or region where feasible. Such a workaround depends on whether customers have the infrastructure and technical arrangements needed to shift operations.
The outage has renewed concerns about the concentration of essential digital services on a small number of cloud providers. Banks, public agencies and businesses increasingly rely on external infrastructure for applications, data storage, authentication and payment processing.
A failure in one cloud region can affect services beyond the immediate location when businesses depend on the same infrastructure or connected systems. The resulting disruption can extend to organisations that do not operate their own data centres.
The UK designated Google Cloud EMEA Limited and three other technology companies as critical third-party suppliers to the financial sector in July, bringing them under direct regulatory oversight. EU regulators have also identified major technology providers on which the financial industry depends.
The latest incident underscores the importance of backup systems, alternative cloud regions and tested recovery plans for organisations providing essential services. Google’s statement that the power event had been mitigated marked a step towards restoration, but full recovery depended on the affected services and customer workloads returning to normal.