A London Power Failure Froze 70M+ Revolut Accounts and Exposed Digital Banking's Weak Spot

The exterior of the Google Data Centre is pictured in Waltham Cross, north of London, on October 20, 2026. A power outage at a Google Cloud data centre in London caused serious network disruptions to its services Tuesday, October 20, the US tech giant said. (Credit: Photo by Ben Stansall / AFP via Getty Images)

The Briefing

• A power failure inside a single zone of Google Cloud's London data center disrupted approximately 30 to 36 services on Tuesday, October 20, freezing card payments, ATM withdrawals, and account logins for Revolut, HSBC, Lloyds, Halifax, the NHS, Royal Mail, and dozens of other platforms.
• Revolut — which now serves more than 70 million customers in 40-plus countries, including active operations in the U.S., Mexico, and Brazil — confirmed multiple services were partially or fully unavailable, with customers blocked from signing into the app entirely.
• The outage landed just weeks after Revolut received conditional OCC approval to become a U.S. national bank, intensifying questions about cloud resilience and domestic failover planning ahead of a targeted 2027 American launch.