Visa puts Friday chaos down to ‘hardware failure’

The disruption, which was first detected on Friday afternoon and lasted through to the evening, resulted in many unable to complete transactions or use their card to purchase goods and services.

The company has since said it “fell well short” of its goal to ensure cards work reliably at all times following problems on Friday afternoon.

While apologising for the disruption, the financial services giant, which enjoys a 66 per cent market share across Europe, ruled out cyber attack or unauthorised access instead saying it “was the result of a hardware failure”.

Shortly after 10pm on Friday night, Visa said its services were operating at “close to normal levels,” before releasing a second statement six hours later assuring users the problems had been completely resolved.

“Visa has resolved a technical issue which occurred yesterday in Europe and prevented some consumers from using Visa for payments,” the company said in the early hours of Saturday.

“The issue was the result of a hardware failure within one of our European systems and is not associated with any unauthorised access or cyberattack.

“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.”

A third statement issued on Saturday evening, however, explained that while the technical issue had been resolved, “a small number of cardholders may have pending transactions that could be limiting their spending ability.”