A power outage affecting WorldPay, one of the world's largest payment processing platforms, caused widespread card payment failures at British pubs and supermarkets on Tuesday, coinciding with the World Cup group game between England and Ghana.
Customers reported that contactless payments were not working at numerous stores, including Tesco branches, and at venues screening the match. Videos on social media showed long queues forming outside cash machines as people scrambled to withdraw money.
Cause of the Outage
A WorldPay spokesperson stated: “The UK experienced a power grid disruption, which is causing intermittent transaction authorization issues for some Worldpay clients. Our technical teams are engaged and working to address the matter as soon as possible.” On its website, WorldPay added: “A third-party power disruption is causing intermittent transaction authorization issues and tokenization requests errors on some Worldpay platforms. Our technical teams have restored service to some platforms and continue to troubleshoot to restore full service as soon as possible.”
Impact on Retailers and Consumers
Monitoring website Downdetector indicated over 1,000 reports of payment issues at Tesco since 8pm. In a response to a customer complaint on X, Tesco said: “There is an issue with Worldpay at the moment affecting us and other businesses taking card payments.” Some pubs and entertainment venues announced on social media that they were only accepting cash payments due to the problems.
Consumers voiced frustration on social media. One wrote: “Global outage on @Worldpay_Global- leaving busy pubs in the UK unable to sell beer to customers who don’t have cash … not great.” Another commented: “Unbelievable … busy England game and World Pay goes down on card terminals … Multiple sectors reporting issues of terminals down.”
Resolution
A Tesco spokesperson later confirmed: “An issue that affected payments in store and online is now resolved. We’re sorry for the inconvenience.” Additional reporting by Sarah Butler.
