Visa outage chaos as UK shoppers hit by payment failures nationwide

24 March 2026 , 18:53

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Visa outage chaos as UK shoppers hit by payment failures nationwide

Visa users across the UK reported payment disruptions on Tuesday afternoon, with issues affecting multiple regions including London, Manchester, Birmingham and Cardiff.

According to outage tracking service Down Detector, reports began to surge at around 3:20pm, peaking shortly after 4pm. Users said transactions were being declined and they were unable to pay by card in shops and cafés.

Visa said its systems were operating normally but confirmed it was investigating whether the disruption could be linked to a third-party payment provider.

Some reports suggested a complete failure of card terminals at certain retail locations, temporarily preventing cashless payments.

Thomas Brown

Head of Investigations