A Google Cloud outage disrupted services at Revolut, Lloyds, HSBC and Halifax on Tuesday, Oct. 20, prompting European financial regulators to question Google about the incident, according to Reuters. The trouble began just after 7 a.m. London time (11:08 p.m. PDT Monday) and lasted several hours before Google confirmed a fix.
Google traced the problem to a “power event” at a third-party facility in its London-based europe-west2 cloud region, Reuters reported. The failure centered on europe-west2-b, one of the region’s three availability zones. Because europe-west2 is Google’s only U.K. cloud region, banks and services that leaned on it without a backup elsewhere faced the fallout.
What Happened During The Google Cloud Outage
At Revolut, which serves roughly 13 million customers in the U.K., the outage hit core functions, including card payments and cash withdrawals. By late Tuesday afternoon, only six of the 27 service categories on Revolut’s U.K. status page were working normally, Reuters reported.
Lloyds and HSBC customers also reported problems, as did customers of Halifax and Bank of Scotland, both part of Lloyds Banking Group, based on reporting from Reuters and Mashable. Halifax acknowledged on X that it was having issues with its app and online banking.
Google addressed the issue directly in a statement cited by Reuters: “We have resolved a disruption to Google Cloud services at a third-party facility in our europe-west2 cloud region due to a power event. Services have been restored.”
What It Means For Revolut Customers
Revolut said customer funds and data remained safe throughout the disruption. The company told Reuters it is reviewing the incident to reduce the impact of future third-party outages on its platform.
It’s still unclear exactly when each bank’s services came back online or how many customers lost access across the affected banks. Lloyds said the root issues had been fixed and services should soon return to normal. Lloyds and HSBC did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment.
Regulatory Scrutiny Following The Disruption
The outage drew immediate attention from financial watchdogs. A spokesperson for the European Banking Authority told Reuters the agency had reached out to Google Cloud for more details on what went wrong and to gauge how the incident might affect financial firms in the EU.
In the U.K., the Financial Conduct Authority said it is engaging with Google. Because British regulators have designated Google Cloud a critical third party, the company must alert both the FCA and the Bank of England when a serious outage occurs. Parliament’s Treasury Committee has also written to the Bank of England and the FCA, asking how they responded, how widespread the disruption was and whether customers suffered financial harm, Reuters reported.
The scrutiny reflects a broader shift in how Europe treats major cloud providers. Reuters called the outage the first major test of new European rules meant to make the tech suppliers behind the financial sector more resilient. Last year, the EU named 19 technology companies as critical suppliers to the financial industry, putting them under the combined direct supervision of three regulators, including the EBA. Britain applied a similar label to four cloud providers, and Google Cloud falls under both systems.
What’s Next
Google said services in the europe-west2 region have been restored and that it will post an analysis on its public status dashboard. Regulators, including the EBA and FCA, are still pressing Google on the cause of the power event and its impact on the financial firms that depend on its cloud infrastructure. Under EU and U.K. rules, banks remain responsible for the services they provide to customers, even when a third-party provider is behind the failure.
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