European financial regulators are questioning Google after a cloud computing outage in London on Tuesday left millions of bank customers without access to key financial services for hours.
The European Banking Authority said it has been 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 told Reuters.
Google said the disruption, which lasted several hours, was caused by a “power event” in a London-based network that serves customers across Europe. Revolut, Lloyds and HSBC were among the banks affected.
Millions locked out
At Revolut, which has around 13 million UK customers, a wide range of services including logging in, card payments and cash withdrawals were affected on Tuesday, according to the bank’s website. Revolut said it was reviewing the incident to reduce the impact of any future third-party disruptions, and that customer funds and data had remained safe throughout.
A Google spokesperson said: “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.”
First test of new rules
The outage is the first major test of new rules across Europe designed to strengthen the resilience of technology providers, including cloud firms, on which the financial sector depends. The EU last year designated 19 technology firms as critical third-party providers to the financial sector, bringing them under joint direct oversight of three financial regulators — including the EBA — for the first time.
In Britain, MPs have also demanded answers. Treasury Committee chair Meg Hillier MP has written to the governor of the Bank of England and the CEO of the Financial Conduct Authority asking how they will respond, with an initial response demanded by 4 November and full details by 20 January 2027.
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