A power outage at a Google Cloud data center near London caused significant disruptions to services on Monday, impacting financial institutions and legal proceedings. The incident, which began shortly after 7 a.m., affected multiple services in Google's europe-west2 region. Google attributed the problem to a 'power issue' and stated that services were recovering by 1 p.m., with most customers back online by 3 p.m. However, the outage caused major operational challenges for banks like Lloyds, HSBC, and Revolut, as well as disrupted court video systems across England and Wales. Despite the resolution, millions of customers faced difficulties accessing and sending cash, prompting apologies from affected companies. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has reached out to Google to gather more details about the incident, marking the first major test for regulators overseeing cloud services in the UK financial sector. Industry experts have highlighted the risks of relying on a few major technology providers, following similar disruptions at Amazon Cloud last year.
October 20, 2026
Google Cloud Outage Resolved, Regulators Seek Details
Google Cloud services have been restored for most customers after a power issue disrupted operations for UK banks and legal systems.
Impact
The incident underscores the vulnerability of critical financial systems to cloud service outages, prompting increased regulatory scrutiny and calls for diversification in technology infrastructure.