Google Cloud outage in London disrupts banks, DPD and courts

On Tuesday 20 October 2026, many online services in the UK and parts of Europe were disrupted. The cause was an outage at Google Cloud's data centre in London.

What happened

Google said the problems were caused by a power-related incident in the europe-west2-b zone, in the region headquartered in London. According to AFP and Reuters, as cited by Bankier.pl, the disruption began at 6:08 GMT. Google Cloud provides infrastructure used by businesses and institutions, so an outage at one provider could affect many independent services at once.

Google said the power failure had been fixed and that infrastructure services were being restored gradually. The remaining ones are due to return at a later stage. This does not mean that all the problems have been resolved.

Who was affected

Most reports concerned Revolut. Customers wrote about problems with logging in, card payments, transfers and cash withdrawals from cash machines. Revolut confirmed the disruption and assured customers that their money and data were safe. The company's representative in Poland, Krzysztof Budek, told money.pl that the fault was on Google Cloud's side.

Lloyds and Halifax banks also reported problems. According to LBC radio, as cited by Polish Express, HSBC, Screwfix, Rightmove and the courier company DPD, among others, also had problems.

The outage also affected the justice system. The Criminal Bar Association, an organisation of barristers who handle criminal cases, said that in England and Wales it prevented lawyers from continuing some trials and hearings.

Polish Express also writes about disruption at the NHS. This could not be confirmed in other sources, so it is not known which services were affected or to what extent.

What this means for you

Many people use Revolut and UK banks, so during the outage you may have had problems with card payments, withdrawals or transfers. It is worth keeping a second card or some cash to hand. Revolut says customers' funds are safe. If you are waiting for DPD parcels, you may expect delays. The current status of Google Cloud services is available on the company's status page.