Google Cloud services down in UK; banks, public sector report issues

Oct 20 (Reuters) - A disruption at Google's cloud operations in London on Tuesday affected the websites and mobile apps of several banks, financial firms and public service providers in the region, highlighting how businesses and services have become critically dependent on digital infrastructure.

British digital bank Revolut has suffered a service outage related to the disruption in Alphabet's Google Cloud service, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters.

European regulators have become increasingly worried in recent years about the financial sector's reliance on external technology providers, including cloud-computing services that support critical banking operations.

In July the UK designated four tech companies, including Google Cloud EMEA Limited, as critical third-party suppliers ‌for its financial sector, bringing them under direct regulatory oversight.

Google Cloud was also among 19 technology companies designated by EU regulators last year as critical third-party computing providers on which the bloc's finance industry depends.

On Tuesday, Google said its engineering team was investigating the issue that affected the London-based europe-west2 data centre, primarily designed for customers in the UK and Ireland. The search giant did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for further details.

Revolut's status page showed most of its services were unavailable or partially available, including card payments and ATM withdrawals. "We are currently experiencing a service disruption affecting multiple services. We can confirm that all our customers' money and data are safe," it said on X.

Separately, ING Germany said there were problems logging into online banking and its banking app due to a technical issue. Britain's Halifax Bank also said customers were facing issues online and with its app.

Outage tracking platform Downdetector showed a small number of reports of issues in the UK, affecting Lloyds Bank, HSBC, Bank of Scotland, property website Rightmove, parcel delivery service DPD as well as the state-owned National Health Service (NHS) England and Royal Mail.

HSBC, Rightmove, DPD, NHS England and Royal Mail did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment on the cause of the outage. Lloyds said its app was operating normally but some customers were experiencing issues with certain online services.

Downdetector tracks outages by aggregating status reports from multiple sources, including users. Actual user impact may vary.

(Reporting by Akanksha Khushi and Anhata Rooprai in Bengaluru, Elizabeth Howcroft in Paris and Sam Tabahriti in London; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar)