Google says services recovering after cloud outage hits UK banks and websites

Google Cloud has said a "power event" is behind an outage affecting a range of online services in the UK, including banks and the courts.

The company, which is one of a handful of large cloud computing providers whose infrastructure and services are used to power millions of online platforms, reported an "issue with multiple services" at its UK data centre complex "europe-west2".

Banks Revolut, Lloyds and Halifax are among those to report disruption to their apps, thought the link to the Google Cloud outage has not been officially confirmed.

Google Cloud has not given a clear timeline for when the issues will be resolved but it has apologised "to all who are affected by the disruption".

In a statement on Tuesday morning, a Google Cloud spokesperson said "we are investigating this further" and referred journalists to its service health dashboard for details.

A range of online platforms reported issues with some services on Tuesday morning, after users and customers flagged problems on social media and to platform outage monitor Downdetector.

But few have explicitly tied problems they are experiencing to the Google Cloud incident.

After Downdetector saw more than 1,500 reports of issues affecting Revolut services shortyl after 08:00 BST on Tuesday, a spokesperson for the company confirmed its problems had been caused by a third-party issue.

"We are currently experiencing a service disruption affecting multiple services," a Revolut spokesperson told the BBC in an earlier statement - adding "we can confirm that all our customers' money and data are safe."

"We've been working to fix the issue since it was identified this morning and apologise to anyone affected and for any inconvenience caused," they added.

Other popular services, including Lloyds Bank, Halifax and Bank of Scotland - all owned by Lloyds Banking Group - were also experiencing some problems on Tuesday.

A Lloyds spokesperson told the BBC its app was functioning normally, but said "we understand some are having issues with certain online services this morning".

"We are aware of similar issues affecting other organisations and are monitoring the situation closely," they added.

The HM Courts and Tribunals Service also said it was aware of an issue affecting the video platform used for remote hearings, and delivery firm DPD flagged that it was "aware of connection issues."

The incident at Google's UK cloud site, europe-west2 was first indicated on its service health dashboard, external on Monday evening UK time.

It was updated in the early hours of Tuesday morning to flag that the region was experiencing "elevated errors and intermittent network failures" across some of its services.