By Phoebe Seers and Elizabeth Howcroft
LONDON/PARIS, Oct 21 (Reuters) – European financial regulators are questioning Google after a cloud computing outage on Tuesday left millions of bank customers without access to key financial services for hours.
The European Banking Authority said it had been in contact with Google Cloud to obtain further information about the incident, understand its implications and assess its potential impact on EU financial entities, a spokesperson for the watchdog told Reuters.
Alphabet subsidiary Google said the disruption, which lasted several hours, was caused by a “power outage” in a London-based network that serves customers across Europe. Revolut, Lloyds and HSBC were among the banks affected.
Lloyds and HSBC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A Google spokesperson said: “We have resolved an outage in Google Cloud services at a third-party installation in our Europe West2 cloud region due to a power issue. Services have been restored. We will update our public health dashboard with analysis.”
At Revolut, which has around 13 million customers in the UK, a wide range of services including login, card payments and cash withdrawals were affected on Tuesday, according to the bank’s website.
Revolut said in a statement that it was reviewing the incident to reduce the impact of any future disruption from third parties, and that customer funds and data had remained safe throughout.
The outage is the first major test of new rules in Europe designed to strengthen the resilience of technology providers, including cloud computing companies, on which the financial sector depends.
Last year, the European Union designated 19 technology companies as essential third-party providers to the financial sector, placing them under the joint direct supervision of three financial regulators – including the EBA – for the first time. Britain has taken similar measures for four cloud providers, citing the risk that an outage at one major provider could affect several financial firms at the same time. Google Cloud falls under both regulatory frameworks.
In Britain, the parliamentary Treasury Committee has written to the Bank of England and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) seeking details of regulators’ response to Tuesday’s outage, the scale of the disruption and any financial damage caused.
The FCA said it was in discussions with Google over the incident. Under the UK’s critical third party regime, designated providers like Google Cloud must report serious outages to the FCA and BoE.
Gn bussni
