Some users in the UK and other parts of Europe are experiencing problems paying for purchases with Visa cards for several hours now, as first spotted by Bloomberg today. It turns out Visa is experiencing a network failure, with the company now saying it’s investigating the issue. The company also confirmed on Twitter that there’s a service disruption in Europe. The outage has caused several banks — including the Royal Bank of Scotland and the Bank of Ireland — to issue statements addressing the issue, noting alternative methods of payment that still work, like cash withdrawals through the ATM and Mastercard transactions. Still, in some places, Visa cards are working fine. We are currently experiencing a service disruption which is preventing some Visa transactions in Europe from being processed. We are investigating the cause and working as quickly as possible to resolve the situation. We will keep you updated. — VisaNewsEurope (@VisaNewsEurope) June 1, 2018 According to The Guardian, some supermarkets are dealing with the problem by issuing paper slips to check out customers and many retailers are putting up cash only signs. When a user inserts a Visa card into a kiosk, the card issues a signal to Visa, but that’s where the error lies, supermarket chain Asda explained to The Guardian. The cash out feature on Visa cards appears to still be working. Users who only have Visa cards in their wallet are left dealing with long lines at train station ticket counters and limited means of paying for purchases.<doc-sep>Justin Sullivan/Getty Images If you wanted to use your Visa card to pay for something in the UK and Europe on Friday, you may have had to use cash instead. Visa announced Friday that it experienced a "service disruption" that prevented transactions from going through. We are currently experiencing a service disruption which is preventing some Visa transactions in Europe from being processed. We are investigating the cause and working as quickly as possible to resolve the situation. We will keep you updated. — VisaNewsEurope (@VisaNewsEurope) June 1, 2018 As a result, The Guardian reports that millions of people have been unable to pay at shops, gas stations and train stations across the UK and Europe, to the point that lines reportedly built up at gas stations and some supermarket customers were forced to leave their items at the register. The Financial Times reports that many UK ATMs ran out out of money when customers were forced to use cash. A Visa spokesperson tells CNET the issue was due to a hardware failure. "We have no reason to believe this was associated with any unauthorized access or malicious event," the company added. Visa says you should be able to use your card now. At around 2:20 p.m. PT, the company sent CNET the following statement: Earlier today, Visa had a system failure that impacted customers across Europe. Our goal is to ensure all Visa cards work reliably 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. We fell well short of this goal today and we apologize to all of our partners, and most especially, to Visa cardholders. Visa cardholders can now use their Visa cards as we are currently operating at close to normal levels. As of 8:32 p.m. PT, Visa added that its European systems were fully functional. "Visa Europe's payment system is now operating at full capacity, and Visa account holders can now use Visa for any of their purchases and at ATMs, as they normally would," the company wrote. Here are some of the tweets from banks and retailers earlier in the day: Hi David. We believe there may have recently been issues with Visa’s payments processing. From what we understand there are still intermittent issues but services are slowly recovering. ^KD — HSBC UK (@HSBC_UK) June 1, 2018 We’re aware some customers are experiencing Visa debit card issues, we’re sorry if you’ve been affected. This is impacting multiple banks across Europe. We’ll update when we know more. You can still make cash withdrawals from ATM's. — Barclays UK Help (@BarclaysUKHelp) June 1, 2018 We are aware some customers are experiencing Visa debit card issues. This is impacting multiple banks across Europe. We will update when we know more. Cash withdrawals can be made at any BOI ATM. — Bank of Ireland (@talktoBOI) June 1, 2018 We are aware of an industry wide issue affecting Visa payments which is under investigation. ATM and Mastercard transactions are not impacted. We apologise for any inconvenience caused. — Bank of Scotland (@AskBankOfScot) June 1, 2018 Urgent: VISA outage announcement affecting all merchants nationwide. pic.twitter.com/BMuRLIs5cY — Paymentsense (@Paymentsense) June 1, 2018 There is currently a disruption of service in taking payments from VISA. It is affecting all shops/merchants across the UK and Ireland. We can still accept MasterCard, American Express or good old cash! We'll keep you updated when it's fixed and apologise for any inconvenience. — Wrapped! (@wrappedshop) June 1, 2018 We have been advised by our card processing partner that Visa card transactions throughout the UK are experiencing disruption. If you are trying to purchase tickets, please use an alternative payment method. We will keep you updated as the situation develops #visa. — Paultons Theme Park (@paultonspark) June 1, 2018 Sat in a bar in Vienna, can’t pay the bill because visa is down everywhere... and then an advert for visa debit comes on. Oh the irony #visa debit pic.twitter.com/GdpErlroZL — jamie (@donttakethepeas) June 1, 2018 Read more at ZDNet: Visa transactions hit by service outage First published June 1, 9:36 a.m. PT.<doc-sep>13:51 Business owners and shoppers out in Broomhill in west Sheffield seemed intensely relaxed about the Visa machine difficulties. “I usually just pay by cash anyway,” said Mandy Stevens, as she came out of Morrisons with her shopping. The store had problems taking card payments all afternoon, with customers going outside and waiting patiently to take money out of a cash point, before returning. Stevens, who runs the SM Hair hairdressers across the road, said the first thing she knew of the troubles had been when a client asked if her machine was working because he had read the news. Her salon’s machine was working fine on Friday. “Maybe it’s just certain types of machines or certain places that are having trouble,” she said. Most businesses on Broomhill’s high street reported having some problems taking card payments on Friday afternoon. Richard Stacey from the Record Collector record shop said it had been a quiet day anyway, so the difficulties had not damaged business. A barista at Costa Coffee said he had heard that nearby cash machines were running out of money, which could cause difficulties if the problems persisted. “We’ll see what tomorrow brings”, he said. Remo Sineone, who runs Remo’s, a cafe and deli, said he had been having particular trouble taking contactless payments on Friday afternoon. “Short term, I can’t really see it being much of a problem to be honest,” he said.<doc-sep>
Visa card holders throughout Europe are scrambling for cash Friday as widespread outages are being reported. Thousands of users are reporting their Visa debit cards are not working when trying to checkout at multiple locations. The Bank of Ireland confirmed on Twitter that many users are experiencing Visa outages. "We are aware some customers are experiencing Visa debit card issues," the bank said. "This is impacting multiple banks across Europe. We will update when we know more. Cash withdrawals can be made at any BOI ATM." We are aware some customers are experiencing Visa debit card issues. This is impacting multiple banks across Europe. We will update when we know more. Cash withdrawals can be made at any BOI ATM. — Bank of Ireland (@talktoBOI) June 1, 2018 "We are currently experiencing a service disruption which is preventing some Visa transactions in Europe from being processed," Visa said in a statement. "We are investigating the cause and working as quickly as possible to resolve the situation. We will keep you updated." Visa released a statement around noon EST but has been quiet on Twitter since. European Visa debit card users voiced their frustration online. Some wondered how they would buy groceries, access money they needed to get to work and much more. Others joked how the situation is proof that going cashless in the future is foolish. "#Visa crashing just as we went to pay for a weekly shop and its absolute chaos. If there was ever a reason to not go cashless, visa crashing nationally is it," Twitter user Rachel Crooks said. #Visa crashing just as we went to pay for a weekly shop and its absolute chaos. If there was ever a reason to not go cashless, visa crashing nationally is it. — Rachel Crooks (@rachel_crooksx) June 1, 2018 Hearing reports of a visa outage at the mo..... good old crypto doesn't have this problem — r0b1nuk 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 (@r0b1nuk1) June 1, 2018 So it's visa's fault I couldn't get my bread https://t.co/hvTjEhQh5W — Eike (@EikeSky) June 1, 2018 #Feelingsmug Statement from Mastercard: Mastercard is seeing no problems on its network.#Visa — Johnny Greenwood (@johnnyg10) June 1, 2018 Erm I need to go do my weekly food shop but apparently visa payments are broken? Fingers crossed it works for me 🤞🏻 — Stacie (@_stacielouise) June 1, 2018 There's a little glitch in the romantic tales told about a future cashless society: As soon as #Visa goes down, the economy grinds to a halt. We're seeing a little preview right now https://t.co/R4vpLacfGF — Brett Scott (@Suitpossum) June 1, 2018 This is a developing story and will be updated as more information becomes available.