Power Outage Hits Google Cloud Disrupting UK Banks and Services

By the Editorial Team · Wednesday, October 21, 2026

A power outage at Google Cloud’s europe-west2 data centre near London disrupted services for UK banks including Revolut, Lloyds, and HSBC, as well as other businesses such as Rightmove and Royal Mail, lasting about six hours. This incident highlights the risks of heavy reliance on a few major cloud providers, raising concerns over the need for more resilient and diversified IT infrastructure.

A power outage at a Google Cloud data centre near London on Tuesday caused significant disruptions to services used by several UK banks and other businesses. The incident began at 0608 GMT and lasted approximately six hours, with most services restored by 1210 GMT, according to a Google service health update.

The outage, which Google attributed to a "power event," affected a range of services hosted in its europe-west2 data centre. Digital bank Revolut experienced disruptions impacting ATM withdrawals, bank transfers, and card top-ups. A source close to the matter linked these issues directly to the Google Cloud failure. Major lenders Lloyds and HSBC also reported difficulties, with customers encountering problems accessing banking services. Lloyds said in a statement that the root causes had been resolved and expected a full return to normal operations shortly. HSBC confirmed that it was monitoring the situation, which was affecting multiple organizations.

Beyond banking, other UK businesses such as the property website Rightmove, delivery service DPD, and the Royal Mail postal service reported problems during the outage, as indicated by hundreds of user reports tracked by internet monitoring site Downdetector.

Revolut emphasized that customer funds and data remained secure throughout the incident and apologized for any inconvenience caused. Google has announced plans to publish a full incident report in the coming days.

This event has revived concerns about the global dependency on a small number of large cloud providers—often referred to as "hyperscalers"—which supply on-demand IT infrastructure for many businesses worldwide. In recent years, local cloud service providers have lost market share to dominant international companies such as Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, and Amazon Web Services.

Experts point out that although these hyperscalers have the capacity to handle vast amounts of data, their data centres are still vulnerable to localized technical failures that can have widespread repercussions. University of Surrey cybersecurity professor Alan Woodward noted that reliance on these few large providers is increasing, especially with expanding demands driven by artificial intelligence technologies. He cautioned that such concentrated dependence poses risks to businesses reliant on uninterrupted cloud services.

Last year, a major outage at Amazon Web Services disrupted numerous online platforms across gaming, business, and transportation sectors, underscoring the potential impact of failures within the cloud infrastructure ecosystem. The recent Google Cloud incident serves as a reminder of the critical nature of resilient and diversified IT infrastructure in an increasingly digital economy.

This article was reported by synthesizing coverage from multiple independent news outlets to present a balanced, unbiased account. Read about our editorial standards. Spotted an error? Let us know.