Visa outage as millions of customers left unable to use bank cards across UK and Europe

Customers have reportedly being left unable to make chip and pin payments across the UK and Ireland



Card payments network Visa is currently experiencing a widespread outage with millions of customers unable to use their cards across the UK and Europe.

This is the network that processes transactions for a number of banks as well thousands of small and large businesses.

The scale of the issue is currently unclear with Visa currently "investigating" the problem which started at around 4pm on Friday.

A statement from Visa told The Mirror: "Visa is currently experiencing a service disruption.

"This incident 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."

Mastercard payments are not affected and all payments are operating normally.

“We are seeing nothing abnormal on our network right now,” a spokesman said.

Disappointed shoppers have been unable to purchase items using chip and pin machines with many reporting failed transactions at major supermarkets including Asda, Sainsbury's and Aldi, who pay Visa to manage their card payments.

Mirror Money contacted all three retailers for a comment.

Asda told us it is experiencing difficulties in 'some' stores intermittently.

Another customer on twitter told us "it's chaos" in Asda's Bolton branch.

A Sainsbury’s spokesperson told The Mirror: "We are aware that Visa are currently experiencing problems. We are doing our best to help our customers and apologise for any inconvenience."

Card payments solutions company Paymentsense said "all merchants nationwide" are affected and unable to process transactions.

Despite the powers that be making it difficult, you just can't beat cash. As an old boy I used to work with used to say, "There're only two things in your life you can trust: your mum and the pound in your pocket. Neither will let you down." - I had to disagree about mums, but he was right about the pound.

I always carry enough cash to cover my shopping bill, just in case.

I like you Rebbonk use only cash and just get enough for my shopping like Dutchman and a few pound extra for milk during the week

I heard on the radio a few weeks back two country's are aiming for a cashless society soon one is the UK I can't recall the other country. So if any one does a job for a friend or relative and they pay them it will have to be through the bank the only people who are allowed to go into your bank account is the tax inland revenue I wonder how many will done for tax evasion or taxed on their accounts.