Hundreds of websites and mobile apps have been disrupted after a major problem affected Google Cloud services.
The outage, which started at about 7am BST, has hit a range of services, including several banking apps, Royal Mail and property website Rightmove.
Google said the disruption is centred on its London region.
The technology company said engineers were investigating the fault, which affected its London-based europe-west2 data centre.
In an update published on its Cloud Status page at 12:12 BST, Google said: “We are experiencing an issue with multiple services in europe-west2 beginning on Monday, 2026-10-19 23:08 PDT.”
The company explained that a power-related incident had caused an outage in the europe-west2-b zone, adding that the power problem had since been brought under control.
Google said some infrastructure services would begin returning over the following 30 minutes, with the remaining services expected to be restored afterwards.
It added that a further update would be issued by Tuesday, 2026-10-20 05:00 PDT, and apologised to customers affected by the interruption.
A widespread Google Cloud outage has disrupted hundreds of websites and apps
Down Detector reports problems affecting Rightmove, Halifax, Lloyds Bank, Revolut, HSBC and Royal Mail
Down Detector, which monitors reports of online service failures, listed Rightmove, Halifax, Lloyds Bank, Revolut, HSBC and Royal Mail among the platforms experiencing problems.
The disruption has also affected essential public services, including NHS England and the courts.
The Criminal Bar Association said the outage had made it more difficult for barristers to help reduce court backlogs.
In a post on X, the CBA said the Cloud Video Platform, or CVP, had been unavailable across large parts of England and Wales since 10am.
The organisation said prosecution and defence barristers had been unable to move ahead with some trials and hearings, warning that the technical failure was hindering efforts to tackle the backlog.
HM Courts and Tribunals Service also acknowledged the problem on X, saying it was aware of an issue affecting CVP, which is used for some remote hearings.
Despite several remote participants being unable to connect, Mr Justice Bennathan, the judge overseeing the Russell Brand trial, chose to continue with the proceedings.
Some members of the public who had planned to watch online were able to find spare seats inside the courtroom. Others, however, could not follow proceedings as the fourth complainant began giving evidence.
A significant number of banking apps were also affected, leaving some customers unable to make or receive payments.
The Criminal Bar Association said the Google Cloud outage had hindered barristers’ work to reduce court backlogs
The outage appears to have caused disruption for a wide range of websites, potentially affecting millions of users
By 9.00am, Down Detector showed 480 user-submitted reports of disruption affecting the Lloyds Bank app and website.
Of those affected customers, 36 per cent said they were unable to log in, 31 per cent said they could not use online banking, while a further 25 per cent said they could not use the app.
Halifax Bank wrote on X that the company was ‘aware some customers are having issues with our app and online’.
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Likewise, the budgeting app Emma took to social media to confirm that the outage was ‘not a security issue’.
The company wrote: ‘Emma is currently down due to a Google Cloud outage affecting services in London since 7am.’
The banking app Revolut also appeared to be partially affected, with customers worldwide unable to open the app, send money, or even make card payments.
On X, one frustrated commenter complained: ‘This morning: Can’t buy breakfast. Car is stuck in a paid carpark. Can’t pay for taxi or scooter as backup. Probably should be carrying some cash.’
‘Nothing like being stuck in the middle of a city in Japan, unable to pay for literally anything and having to cancel my beauty appointments because my bank @Revolut is having a massive outage,’ wrote another.
While one customer said: ‘I’m at a petrol station in Australia. Can’t pay for my fuel that I just put in my car.. so I’m just standing in the petrol station highly embarrassed and can’t get home to my kids.’
The banking app Revolut also appeared to be partially affected, with customers worldwide unable to open the app, send money, or even make card payments
According to Down Detector, issues began around 8.00am this morning and quickly escalated as users shared hundreds of outage reports.
By 8.02am, Revolut had over 1,458 reports of service disruption.
Of those, 62 per cent of customers said they were having problems with the app, 22 per cent with funds transfer, and nine per cent with mobile banking.
In a post shared on X earlier today, Revolut says: ‘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.’
Marijus Briedis, chief technology officer at NordVPN, told Our News Outlet: ‘When a cloud outage leaves people unable to make payments or access everyday services, it exposes how much we depend on infrastructure we never see.
‘For everyday Google users, this dependence can mean several services they rely on suddenly being unavailable at the same time. Someone unable to pay through one banking app may find their alternative is affected too.’
Mr Briedis adds that the enormous scope of Google’s cloud computing services means that outages might affect businesses whose customers have no idea they depend on the company at all.
Cloud computing is where companies pay providers like Google and Amazon to handle their data management, storage and networking at large data centres.
Banking app Revolut’s status page shows that services ranging from card payments and ATM withdrawals to stock trading are currently unavailable
By 8.02am, Revolut had over 1,458 reports of service disruption. Of those, 62 per cent of customers said they were having problems with the app, 22 per cent with funds transfer, and nine per cent with mobile banking
These services are typically far cheaper for companies than managing their own servers, and typically extremely reliable.
However, when a major provider does experience a problem, it can have cascading effects due to the number of companies affected.
This outage is the latest in a string of serious service disruptions that have affected cloud services over the last few years.
Last year, both Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services saw major outages that brought ‘half the internet’ to a standstill.
Together, Amazon and Microsoft’s vast data centres, known as ‘hyperscalers’, host over 60 per cent of the world’s cloud services.
So when there is a problem, almost everyone around the world feels the impact.
