Google to investigate cloud outage after UK businesses hit by disruption

Google has said it will investigate an incident that caused major disruption to its cloud network after confirming most services are back up and running.

Multiple businesses that rely on the network experienced problems on Tuesday, including banks and the courts.

By 3pm, Google said the issues had been largely resolved and only a very small number of customers were still being affected.

“We will publish an analysis of this incident once we have completed our internal investigation,” the company said on its service health page.

“We thank you for your patience while we’re working on resolving the issue.”

Google said a “power event” had caused the outage in the “Europe-west2” region, believed to be London, on Monday evening.

This caused multiple cloud services to experience errors and intermittent network failures.

Google Cloud’s UK infrastructure is based in London and it was the only area to experience disruption.

It had 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.

Revolut, which has millions of UK customers, was among the firms reporting problems caused by the incident.

The bank 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 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) temporarily experienced 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 issued an update at noon.

Hundreds of Lloyds Bank and HSBC users also reported issues to Downdetector, as well as platforms like Royal Mail, DPD and Rightmove, on Tuesday morning.

Budgeting app Emma told customers it went down because of the Google Cloud outage.

By Tuesday afternoon, 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 have been “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.”