Google Cloud Outage Affects UK Banks and Websites
Source reports published 20 Oct 2026, 10:00 am – 11:04 pm AEST
A power event at a Google Cloud data centre in London caused disruptions to several UK banks, businesses, and online services. Google Cloud reported resolving the issue, stating services had been restored.
What happened
- Google Cloud reported a "power event" within its europe-west2 cloud region, specifically the europe-west2-b data centre zone in London, as the cause of disruptions.
- These disruptions affected services including Revolut, Lloyds Bank, HSBC, Royal Mail, DPD, and the HM Courts and Tribunals Service.
- Revolut confirmed a service disruption, stating that all customer money and data remained safe.
- Lloyds Banking Group reported issues with its app, while the Courts and Tribunals Service was working with technology partners to restore the Cloud Video Platform used for remote hearings.
- The outage, which peaked around 9am BST, was partially resolved by mid-afternoon.
- Michał "rysiek" Woźniak, an internet infrastructure expert, highlighted the increasing reliance on a handful of hyperscalers like Google, Amazon, and Microsoft for critical infrastructure, noting that their outages can have widespread consequences.
- Google Cloud stated it would publish an analysis of the incident on its service health dashboard.
- Last year’s Amazon Web Services outage, attributed to a bug in automation software, demonstrated the potential for significant cascading effects.
Original reporting
- BBC: Google says cloud outage affecting UK banks and websites resolved
2026-10-20T08:46:00.459000+00:00 - Guardian: ‘Too big to not fail’: Google outage exposes UK reliance on a handful of cloud providers
2026-10-20T00:00:00+00:00 - New York Times World: Google Reports Cloud Disruptions in Europe
2026-10-20T13:04:12+00:00