CHIP AND PAIN
Visa cards crash across Europe
MILLIONS of people were unable to make card payments after the Visa network crashed yesterday.
The firm blamed an unexplained “service disruption” for the chaos across the UK and Europe.
Stores were forced to put up signs telling customers they could only accept cash.
Financial tech firm Paymentsense said “all merchants nationwide” were unable to process transactions.
The problem did not appear to affect cash machine withdrawals.
However, there were fears those not able to make card payments would rush to take out money from ATMs ahead of the weekend.
The Bank of England said it was in contact with Visa about the problem.
Visa said the fault was not down to “unauthorised access or a malicious event”. It 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.” M&S said: “We are unable to accept Visa payments currently.” Sainsbury’s added: “We are doing our best to help out customers and apologise for any inconvenience.” Jay Curtis, 32, had two cards declined at B&Q. He told the BBC: “I had £240 worth of stuff in my trolley. My card just wouldn’t go through.” One shopper said on Twitter: “Literally dumped my shopping and walked out of Sainsbury’s”, adding he did not have time to get cash. The outage also hit payments on the Severn Bridge, leading to tailbacks and what one driver called “carnage”.