What went wrong in London
Google traced the outage to a “power event” in one of the three zones that make up its London cloud region. These zones are designed to operate independently, so a fault in one should not bring down services that rely on other zones. Yet the disruption affected services across the wider region. Google’s status page first reported errors and network failures at 06:08 UTC on 20 October. It did not identify the power event as the cause until 11:12 UTC, about five hours later.
Who felt Google’s cloud outage?
The outage disrupted everyday payments and banking services. Revolut customers could not make card payments, transfer money or withdraw cash from ATMs. Lloyds, Halifax and Bank of Scotland customers also reported problems logging in.
The disruption affected operations beyond essential banking. Remote court hearings, including those involving defendants in custody, were delayed. Small businesses also lost time and sales: a produce supplier in Preston could not process orders or book DPD collections, leaving it unable to sell some perishable stock.
The impact on Revolut was still significant at 5pm, when the Guardian reported that only six of its 27 services were working. Revolut later confirmed that all services had been restored and that customers’ money and data remained safe.
Why regulators are watching
Since 13 July, the Bank of England, the Prudential Regulation Authority, and the FCA have jointly overseen Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, Microsoft, and Oracle, the first providers designated under the 2023 law. Regulators have signalled that the first year will focus on understanding risk rather than enforcement. Treasury Committee chair Dame Meg Hillier has asked the Bank of England and the FCA how they will use their new powers to oversee critical third-party cloud providers following the Google Cloud outage. Regulators must submit an initial response by 4 November 2026, with full details due by 20 January 2027.
The plan for the future?
Google’s analysis should explain why a fault in one zone disrupted a whole region, and the regulators’ reply to MPs will show how quickly they learned of the outage. Its findings will also give regulators a clearer basis for assessing the incident and deciding whether cloud providers are meeting their new reporting and resilience obligations.