A disruption affecting Google Cloud’s London-based infrastructure caused problems for several banks, financial services, and public service providers in the United Kingdom on Tuesday, October 20.
The incident affected Google Cloud’s europe west2 region, which serves customers in the UK and Ireland, and resulted in elevated errors and intermittent network failures across multiple services.
According to “Reuters“, the disruption affected digital banking services, including those used by Revolut, Halifax and ING Germany. Users also reported issues involving other organisations, including Lloyds Bank, HSBC, Rightmove, delivery company DPD, NHS England, and Royal Mail.
However, the reports did not establish that every service disruption experienced by those organisations had been independently confirmed as a direct consequence of the Google Cloud incident.
Banking and Online Services Affected
Revolut reported disruption affecting several services, including card payments and ATM withdrawals. The company said customers’ money and data remained safe.
Halifax also reported problems with its website and mobile application, while ING Germany said customers were experiencing difficulties logging into online banking and its app.
Lloyds Bank said its app was operating normally, although some customers were experiencing problems with certain online services.
The incidents demonstrated how disruptions to cloud infrastructure can affect services that customers rely on for payments, account access, deliveries, and other everyday transactions.
Google Investigates the Disruption
Google said its engineering team was investigating the incident affecting the London region. Its “official Cloud Service Health dashboard” recorded elevated errors and intermittent network failures in europewest2, identifying Cloud Filestore and Google Kubernetes Engine among the affected products in its incident update.
The Guardian’s “live business coverage” subsequently reported that Google had described the disruption as a power event and said it had been mitigated.
The incident also comes amid growing regulatory attention to the reliance of financial institutions on a small number of technology providers. Reuters reported that the UK had designated Google Cloud EMEA Limited as a critical third-party supplier to the financial sector, placing it under direct regulatory oversight.
Questions Over Dependence on Cloud Providers
Cloud computing allows organisations to run applications, store data, and deliver online services without maintaining all the necessary computing infrastructure themselves.
However, when a provider experiences a significant disruption, businesses that depend on its systems can face simultaneous operational problems. The extent of the impact depends on the services used and the alternative systems available to each organisation.
For businesses, the incident underscores the importance of contingency planning, backup arrangements, and recovery systems that can help maintain essential services when a technology provider experiences an outage.
