Google Cloud Outage Disrupts UK Banks and Public Services

Google Cloud has resolved a disruption at its London data centre that affected banks, businesses and public services across the UK on Tuesday.

The incident originated in the europe-west2-b zone, where a power event led to elevated error rates and intermittent network failures.

Among the organisations reporting issues were Revolut, Lloyds Bank, HSBC, Royal Mail, DPD and HM Courts and Tribunals Service. The court service experienced problems with video platforms used for remote hearings.

Revolut received more than 1,500 user complaints during the outage. Some customers were unable to access funds or view transactions. Lloyds Banking Group also acknowledged disruption and said it expected operations to return to normal shortly after the incident.

The effects extended to smaller businesses. The Veg Box Company said it was unable to process orders or book deliveries, causing operational and financial difficulties.

Mark Boost, CEO of Civo, said:

A single logic error or localised failure in a US hyperscaler’s (Google) London data centre paralysed retail banking, crashed consumer apps, and froze operations across the UK. This is the direct tax businesses are paying for failing to diversify risk. The UK’s overreliance on literally two or three companies who run everything critical to the country is a catastrophe waiting to happen”.

Samuel Tourbot, Head of Business Growth at Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise, commented:

“This disruption to UK banks, NHS England services and transport networks highlights the risks of over-reliance on public cloud services. When critical infrastructure fails, the knock-on effects can disrupt essential services, payments and business operations. Organisations cannot afford to leave critical systems exposed to unpredictable outages”.

Google Cloud said its services have since been fully restored and that it plans to publish a detailed analysis of the incident on its service health dashboard.