Financial regulators in Europe seem to question Google after a London cloud outage leaves millions of bank customers without access for hours

Banking watchdogs in Europe seem to have started asking Google what went wrong after a “power event” at a London facility disrupted Google Cloud services, which Reuters says left millions of bank customers without access to key financial services for hours on Tuesday, Oct. 20. The European Banking Authority said it has kept in contact with Google Cloud “to obtain further information on the incident, understand its implications and assess its potential impact on financial entities in the EU,” a spokesperson for the watchdog told Reuters on Wednesday, Oct. 21.

Google’s own account sits on its Cloud status dashboard. The incident log says multiple services in the europe-west2 region ran into trouble beginning at 11:08 p.m. PDT on Monday, Oct. 19, which this desk converts to 7:08 a.m. Tuesday in London. An update posted at 11:12 UTC on Tuesday says: “Due to a power event we had suffered an outage within europe-west2-b zone.” The log lists 38 affected Google Cloud products, from Compute Engine to Cloud SQL, reports recovery “for most workloads in europe-west2” as of 5:10 a.m. PDT, and closes with a note that Google “will publish an analysis of this incident once we have completed our internal investigation.” A Google spokesperson told 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. We will update our public status dashboard with an analysis.” The Guardian quotes the same statement ending “with an analysis of the incident.”

The start time varies by outlet. The BBC says the problem first showed on the europe-west2 dashboard around 07:00 BST, and Computer Weekly says it began just after 7 a.m. BST, both in line with Google’s log. ABC News (Australia) instead says Google put the start shortly after 6 a.m. UK time. The Guardian says Google reported services coming back from 1 p.m. London time and back for most customers by 3 p.m. Computer Weekly says europe-west2-b counts as one of three zones in the London region and that europe-west2 serves as Google’s only UK region, leaving customers without multi-region setups no second UK location to fail over to.

Banks reported a range of failures. At Revolut, which Reuters says has around 13 million UK customers, logging in, card payments and cash withdrawals all faltered, according to the bank’s website. The Guardian says that by 5 p.m. only six of 27 services on Revolut’s status list showed as working. Revolut said in a statement, per the Guardian: “We can confirm that all our customers’ money and data are safe.” Halifax said on X that some customers could not log in, the Guardian reports. An HSBC spokesperson told the Guardian: “Our services have returned to normal following earlier access issues.” A Lloyds spokesperson told the BBC: “We understand the root issues have been resolved, so we expect all our services to be back to normal soon.” City A.M. says Downdetector showed a spike of more than 1,500 Revolut problem reports around 8 a.m.

The Guardian and the BBC describe disruption beyond banks. The Guardian says the video system that defendants, lawyers and others use to join hearings remotely across England and Wales failed throughout the morning, and ABC News (Australia) quotes HM Courts and Tribunals Service on X: “We’re aware of an issue affecting Cloud Video Platform (CVP), used for some remote hearings.” The BBC reports that a barristers’ association said prosecution and defence barristers in England and Wales could not “proceed with trials and other hearings.” The Guardian lists Royal Mail, DPD and the property portal Rightmove among other services reportedly hit, and a second Guardian piece says patients reported temporary glitches on the NHS app. ABC News (Australia) also says live streams of court cases, including the trial of comedian Russell Brand, reportedly went down.

In Britain, the FCA and a parliamentary committee have both responded. Reuters reports that the Financial Conduct Authority described itself as engaging with Google over the incident. An FCA spokesperson told The Guardian and City A.M.: “People need to be able to access their money and make payments, so we expect firms to fix issues quickly, keep their customers informed and ensure no one is left out of pocket.” A Bank of England spokesperson declined to comment to Reuters, while the Guardian says the Bank’s Prudential Regulation Authority “is also understood to be speaking with the tech firm,” and City A.M. says it understands the Bank has contacted both Google and affected firms.

Hillier’s letter went to Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey and FCA chief executive Nikhil Rathi, per City A.M.; the Treasury Committee lists it as correspondence dated Oct. 20, 2026. Computer Weekly says it asks when the authorities first learned of the problem and from whom, what caused it, and how many finance firms and customers it affected, and wants full details by Jan. 20, 2027; City A.M. describes the deadline as a full response in three months. Computer Weekly quotes the letter: “The Bank of England, the Prudential Regulation Authority and the Financial Conduct Authority (the authorities) all have a role in implementing the critical third party regime.”

Google Cloud now falls under that regime. Computer Weekly says Britain labelled the local operations of Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, Microsoft and Oracle critical third parties in July, giving the FCA and the Bank powers of investigation and enforcement over them. Under it, designated providers like Google Cloud must report serious outages to the FCA and the Bank of England, Reuters says, while UK rules still leave banks ultimately responsible for their services, even when they rely on outside providers. Reuters adds that the EU last year designated 19 technology firms as critical third-party providers to finance, placing them under the joint direct oversight of three regulators, including the EBA. Revolut said it would review the incident to reduce the impact of future third-party disruptions, Reuters reports; Lloyds and HSBC did not immediately respond to its request for comment.

The Guardian cites experts who say dependence on a few key tech companies leaves the UK vulnerable to cloud failures. Internet infrastructure expert Michał “rysiek” Woźniak told The Guardian: “Hyperscalers have become too big to not fail.” The Guardian compares the episode with the Amazon Web Services outage a year earlier, which it says hit a far bigger node and had wider effects, and the BBC cites Synergy Research Group data that AWS, Microsoft’s Azure and Google Cloud account for almost two-thirds of global spending on cloud infrastructure.