Visa apologises to customers after massive network crash

Millions of Visa card users across Europe and the UK  were unable to process any transactions due to a nationwide outage in the Visa network.

Things got out of control when some of the customers of MasterCard and American Express card were not able to make payment after transactions were rerouted through Visa’s IT network.


“This incident is preventing some Visa transactions in Europe being processed,” the statement said. “We are investigating the cause and working as quickly as possible to resolve the situation."


But, the company restored its payment system within five hours after the complaint. However,  executives have ruled out any kind of "malicious"  activity behind the failure of the payment system.

In a statement, Visa said: "The issue was the result of a hardware failure within one of our European systems and is not associated with any unauthorized access or cyber attack.

"Visa Europe’s payment system is now operating at full capacity, and Visa account holders can now use Visa for any of their purchases and at ATMs, as they normally would."


Chief executive officer of Visa, said: "We apologize to all of our partners and Visa account holders for any inconvenience this may have caused."