Revolut Outage Disrupts Payments and App Access for Thousands of Users
Revolut says multiple services are affected, Downdetector logs more than 1,500 user reports, and the company says customer money and data are safe
By AXY Business Desk ·
Key points
- Revolut reported a service disruption affecting multiple services on Tuesday morning, with some customers unable to make payments or access funds in the app.
- Downdetector recorded more than 1,500 user reports shortly after 08:00 BST, though these reports measure problem reports rather than the number of customers affected.
- Revolut said all customers' money and data are safe and apologised for the inconvenience, but it has not publicly disclosed the cause of the outage.
- Card payments, transfers, ATM withdrawals and customer support were listed as partially unavailable on the company's website.
- Lloyds Bank and Bank of Scotland were reportedly also experiencing problems, but no link to Revolut's outage has been established.
Revolut, the British digital bank, was hit by a service outage on Tuesday morning that left some customers unable to make payments or access funds through its app, the BBC reported. The company said the disruption was affecting "multiple services", and the outage monitor Downdetector recorded more than 1,500 user reports of problems with Revolut shortly after 08:00 BST. Revolut said it had been working to fix the issue since it was identified that morning, and it confirmed that all customers' money and data were safe.
The incident is a reminder of how much daily life now depends on a handful of digital banking apps. For customers who use a neobank as their main account, a failure can mean they cannot pay for shopping, move money to cover bills, or get cash, all at once. The available reporting does not yet show how many people were affected, how long the problem lasted, or what caused it.
What customers experienced
Users told the BBC that on Tuesday morning they had been unable to make some payments or reach their money in the app. A page on Revolut's website said a range of services were "partially unavailable", including card payments, transfers, ATM withdrawals and customer support. Partial unavailability means some functions are down while others may still work. That can be confusing for customers, who cannot tell in advance which feature will fail or whether a payment attempted at that moment has gone through.
On social media, a number of users criticised the company, saying the outage left them unable to access funds, make payments or contact customer support. These are individual accounts, and the reporting does not verify them one by one. They do, however, describe the practical effect on people trying to manage everyday spending, bills and transfers. Customer support matters especially during an outage, because it is often the route for asking about pending transactions or reporting suspicious activity. When that channel is also affected, people have fewer ways to get answers.
The timing of the problems also matters. Downdetector's count of more than 1,500 reports was recorded shortly after 08:00 BST, which suggests customers began noticing problems in the early hours of the working day, when many people try to make payments for commuting, lunch or morning bills. The reporting does not say when services were restored, so the total length of the disruption remains unknown.
What Revolut has said
A Revolut spokesperson told the BBC: "We are currently experiencing a service disruption affecting multiple services," adding: "we can confirm that all our customers' money and data are safe." The spokesperson said the company had been working to fix the issue since it was identified that morning, and apologised "to anyone affected and for any inconvenience caused."
Revolut declined to say on the record what was causing the problem. It also did not clarify whether the issues were affecting users globally. The reach of the disruption beyond the customers who reported problems to Downdetector and to the BBC is therefore not known from the available reporting. Companies often give a fuller account once the fault has been fixed and the cause understood, but the timing and detail of any such explanation have not been set out.
Why the scale of reports matters
Revolut's website says the bank has more than 80 million customers worldwide. That figure gives a sense of how many people rely on its services in normal times, although it is a company-published number rather than an independently audited one. Downdetector, a website owned by the internet measurement company Ookla, collects reports from users who say they are having trouble with a service, and it is widely used as an early signal of outages. It does not measure how many people were actually affected.
A spike in reports can come from a genuine technical fault, from a wider internet problem, or from people looking up information about a problem they have heard about. The 1,500 reports are therefore best read as a sign of how quickly problems spread among users, rather than as a count of affected customers. Analysts who follow outages generally treat monitoring-site spikes as an early indicator to be checked against company statements. In this case, the combination of a spike in reports, a list of partially unavailable services on the company's own website, and a spokesperson's acknowledgement of multiple affected services points to a disruption broader than a single feature.
What a neobank is and why app outages hit harder
Revolut is one of a group of so-called neobanks, digital-first financial companies that emerged to compete with traditional high-street banks. Neobanks usually offer accounts, cards and payments largely through a smartphone app rather than through branches, and many were built on modern cloud-based technology. For customers, this model can mean quick notifications, easy management of spending and, for some services, lower fees than traditional providers. It also means the app is often the main way people interact with their money.
When the app or its underlying systems fail, customers can lose several functions at once, from paying for goods to moving money between accounts, withdrawing cash and reaching support. Customers with a second bank account, a credit card from another provider or a nearby branch have more options during a disruption. Those who rely on one digital provider for almost everything have far fewer, which is why outages at digital banks tend to attract strong reactions on social media.
Earlier outages and wider industry risk
Large technology outages are not unique to banking. Digital financial services rely on shared providers, including cloud hosting, payment networks and software tools, so a single fault can affect many firms at once. In July 2024, a faulty software update from the cybersecurity company CrowdStrike disrupted Windows computers around the world, affecting airlines, hospitals, banks and other businesses. That episode showed how one technical failure can spread across organisations that have no direct connection to each other.
The Revolut disruption has not been linked publicly to any shared provider, and the company has not said what caused it. Any comparison with past incidents should therefore be treated as general context rather than an explanation of this outage.
UK regulators expect financial firms to be able to withstand and recover from operational disruption. The Financial Conduct Authority, which authorises and supervises Revolut, has rules on operational resilience requiring firms to identify important services and keep them running within set tolerances for disruption. Whether those expectations become a focus in this case would depend on the cause, the duration and the company's response, none of which has been published in the reporting so far.
Other banks reportedly affected
The BBC reported that other popular services, including Lloyds Bank and Bank of Scotland, were also reportedly experiencing some problems on Tuesday. Both are owned by Lloyds Banking Group. The available reporting does not establish whether these issues were connected to the Revolut outage, and it does not say whether the banks share infrastructure or third-party providers with Revolut. Readers should treat the overlap in timing as unconfirmed until the companies or independent monitoring provide more detail.
Simultaneous problems at several banks would raise different questions from a fault at a single firm, including whether a shared supplier or a wider internet problem was involved. Without confirmation, drawing that conclusion would be speculation, and the companies involved have not said anything on the point in the reporting available so far.
What to watch next
Several questions remain open. The most important is the cause of the disruption, which Revolut has not described publicly. Customers will also want to know when services were fully restored, whether card payments, transfers and ATM withdrawals are working normally, and whether any transactions were delayed, duplicated or failed during the incident. Revolut has said customer money and data are safe, and any further statement on that point will matter to people who rely on the app for wages, bills and savings.
Analysts expect scrutiny to focus on how quickly the company identified and fixed the problem and how it communicated with customers while services were down. That scrutiny could come from customers, consumer groups and the Financial Conduct Authority. Whether Revolut publishes a detailed explanation, and whether it offers guidance or compensation to affected customers, could shape how the wider digital banking sector responds and how Revolut's own users judge the service in future.
For customers, practical steps during any outage include checking the company's official channels for status updates, reviewing account activity once services return, and contacting the provider if a payment appears incorrect or missing. These are general steps rather than advice specific to this incident, and the reporting does not indicate that any customer has lost money.
Questions and answers
What caused the Revolut outage?
Revolut said it was experiencing a service disruption affecting multiple services and was working to fix it, but it declined to say on the record what caused the problem.
Is my money safe after the Revolut outage?
Revolut said all of its customers' money and data are safe. The company apologised to anyone affected by the disruption.
Which Revolut services were affected?
Revolut's website listed card payments, transfers, ATM withdrawals and customer support as partially unavailable during the outage.
Were Lloyds Bank customers also affected?
The BBC reported that Lloyds Bank and Bank of Scotland were reportedly also experiencing some problems on Tuesday, but the reporting does not establish a link to the Revolut outage.
Topics: Revolut, Neobank, Digital banking, Downdetector, Lloyds Banking Group, Financial services outage
Sources: BBC Business RSS