European regulators question Google after cloud outage disrupts UK banks
publishers 30articles 35first reported 20 Oct, 09:11 UTCdeveloping since 20 Oct · 8 editions
European financial regulators are seeking information from Google after a power-related outage in its London cloud region disrupted banks and other services across the UK for several hours on Tuesday.
Google said the incident occurred at a third-party facility in its europe-west2 region and affected multiple cloud services. The company said full service had been restored and that it would publish an analysis on its public status dashboard.
Revolut experienced problems with services including account logins, card payments and cash withdrawals. The digital bank, which has about 13 million UK customers, said customer money and data remained safe and that it was reviewing the incident to reduce the impact of future third-party disruptions. Customers of Halifax, Lloyds and HSBC also reported online or mobile banking problems, although the companies did not all confirm that their issues were caused by the Google outage.
Other reported disruptions included connectivity problems at delivery company DPD, temporary NHS app glitches and interruptions to the Cloud Video Platform used for remote court hearings in England and Wales.
The European Banking Authority said it had contacted Google Cloud to learn more about the incident and assess its potential impact on EU financial institutions. Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority is also engaging with Google, while Parliament’s Treasury Committee has asked the FCA and Bank of England for details about the disruption, their response and any resulting financial harm.
Google Cloud is designated as a critical third-party technology provider under both EU and UK financial-sector oversight frameworks.
HOW THIS STORY WAS MADE
Written from 8 articles, 6 with the publisher's own text; 6 independent newsrooms once syndicated copies count as one; this version written 30 h after the record first saw the story; the editor kept it as written.
- Publishers
- 30
- Source articles
- 35
- Given to the writer
- 8, 6 with the article's own text
- Independent newsrooms
- 6
- This version written
- 30 h after the record first saw the story
- Second model (editor)
- kept as written
- Publication gate
- passed
- Human review
- none
WHAT THE EDITOR DID
The second model checked the writer's draft against the same sources and published it as written.
Written by a language model from the sources above, then checked by a second model that may only cut, attribute or correct. How it works →