The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has confirmed that no payments to customer bank accounts have been affected by the Microsoft outage.
The tech giant's services, including Outlook emails, Teams and AI services, were disrupted for hundreds of thousands of people worldwide. In the North East, police forces, councils and NHS trusts were among the organisations affected, with the UK Government and its counterparts forced to implement contingency measures.
Rail and email disruption
Rail firms warned that train passengers may have trouble accessing tickets that had been emailed. LNER said customers could still access their tickets by logging into their account directly through their website or app.
Microsoft said services were "being gradually restored", with some email services beginning to come back. The company stated that the outages did not appear to be the result of a cyber attack.
DWP statement on payments
The DWP, which is responsible for pensions and benefits such as Universal Credit, Pension Credit and Personal Independence Payments (PIP), shared a message on its social media channels: "No DWP payments to customer bank accounts have been affected by the Microsoft outage. If you use the Payment Exception Service and have been affected, call the helpline on 0800 015 2902. We can send your voucher by text or provide a voucher number over the phone."
The Payment Exception Service allows people to collect benefit or pension payments without a bank account, and is only available to those who cannot open one. Users are usually sent either a payment card, an email with a voucher code, or a text message with a voucher code, which they can show at any PayPoint outlet or Post Office to collect their payments.
Microsoft working on full fix
Due to the outage, if a customer's email is not working, the DWP can send the voucher by text or provide a voucher number over the phone. Microsoft said it was working with "urgency" to find a full fix for the issue, which has caused widespread disruption since late Thursday.
On its Microsoft 365 status page, the firm stated: "Traffic is being gradually restored, and we're seeing improvements in key customer scenarios, including mailbox access and delayed email processing. Reducing email queues and backlogs remains a priority, and the extended 48-hour email timeout window remains in place to help protect delayed messages as delivery catches up."
