Visa probe into card payment disruptions

Millions left unable to pay for goods and services

Visa card payments crashed last night across the UK and Europe.

The company said it was working towards resolving the problem.

Customers complained that payments were being declined but some report contactless transactions are proving more successful.

Visa users took to social media to complain and it was understood the Bank of England was aware of the issue and is in touch with the company.

A spokesman said: “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.”

HSBC’s UK Twitter account replied to a customer query on Twitter: “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.”

Barclays and Bank of Ireland advised customers to use ATMs to withdraw cash, which appear to still be working.

Mastercard and American Express both said their networks were working.

Supermarket Tesco said chip and pin payments were not affected, but contactless payments were.