Google Cloud London outage disrupts Revolut, Lloyds and HSBC services across the UK

What happened

A power-related fault at Google Cloud's data center near London disrupted online services for British banks and companies on Tuesday, 20 October 2026. According to AP, the outage began just after 2 a.m. Eastern, or 6:08 a.m. GMT, and the center of the disruption was London. Google later attributed the failure to a power-related event and said most activity was back to normal by the afternoon. Customers in other countries could also be affected if their applications rely on infrastructure based in London.

Banks and businesses hit

Revolut customers were hit hardest, with millions of users affected according to the Guardian. The digital bank reported problems with ATM withdrawals, bank transfers and card top-ups, and many users could not make payments or reach their funds. Lloyds reported malfunctions in its app and online banking, while HSBC customers also struggled to log in. Downdetector logged hundreds of reports that also covered Rightmove, BT, DPD and Royal Mail. The video link used for remote court hearings in England and Wales stayed blocked for the whole morning. Lloyds said in the afternoon that the underlying problems had been resolved and that services should return to normal soon. In Germany, ING warned customers of technical problems with logins to its online banking and app.

Google's response

Google Cloud later said the incident was mitigated for most customers, with only a very small number still affected while engineers finished their checks, according to Europa Press. Earlier in the day the company had said a partial improvement would become visible within 30 minutes, with the remaining services recovering afterwards. Google also expected full restoration of existing workloads by early afternoon on a provisional basis, but warned that customers might still be unable to launch new operations. Its statement to AP also apologized for the disruption.

We apologize to all who are affected by the disruption.

Government and regulators

A spokesperson for prime minister Andy Burnham said Downing Street was aware of the fault and in contact with Google to restore services as quickly as possible. The Financial Conduct Authority, the City's financial regulator, said it had approached Google for more information. ANSA noted that the outage revived concerns about the dependence of institutions and companies on cloud services from a small group of US technology firms. Revolut told AP that it had been working on the problem since it was identified that morning, and it stressed the safety of customer funds.

We can confirm that all our customers' money and data are safe.

Italian customers and compensation claims

In Italy, the consumer association Adusbef said Revolut customers faced serious problems with payments, transfers, ATM withdrawals and online operations. It linked the outage to an earlier case in September 2026, when Revolut was hit by a scam using a compromised institutional email that Adusbef said led to the theft of sensitive customer data. The association asked the bank to introduce automatic compensation for all affected Italian customers. Its president, Antonio Tanza, said:

A serious outage that causes enormous harm to citizens, who cannot make basic purchases, send money or withdraw cash.

Adusbef said it would support affected customers in legal action to obtain damages if the bank did not act.