The cloud computing outage that hit Google Cloud's London region on October 20 left several British banks without key services for hours. By October 21, financial regulators across Europe had begun questioning Google about the incident, shifting the focus from how long the disruption lasted to what supervisors did, how many customers were hit and whether anyone was financially harmed.
A spokesperson for the European Banking Authority told Reuters the watchdog has been in contact with Google Cloud to obtain further information on the incident, understand its implications and assess its potential impact on financial entities in the EU. The EBA is one of the three European Supervisory Authorities that now share direct oversight of critical technology providers.
Dame Meg Hillier, chair of parliament's Treasury Committee, wrote on Tuesday to Bank of England governor Mr Bailey and Financial Conduct Authority chief executive Nikhil Rathi, asking the pair to explain how they responded to the Google Cloud issues, the scale of the disruption and any financial harm caused. The two regulators must set out how they will "strengthen the resilience of the UK's financial system", and Dame Meg also raised the prospect of compensation for customers who struggled to access banking services.
A Google spokesperson said the company had resolved a disruption to Google Cloud services at a third-party facility in its europe-west2 cloud region due to a power event, and that services had been restored. The affected zone was europe-west2-b, one of three local availability zones in the London region. Lloyds and HSBC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The outage is the first major test of new rules across Europe designed to strengthen the resilience of technology providers, including cloud firms, on which the financial sector depends. The concern regulators cited when they moved was that a failure at a single major supplier could affect multiple financial firms at the same time.
The European Union last year designated 19 technology firms as critical third-party providers to the financial sector, bringing them under joint direct oversight of three financial regulators, including the EBA, for the first time. Britain took similar steps for four cloud providers, citing the risk that an outage at a major supplier could affect multiple financial firms at the same time. Google Cloud falls under both regulatory frameworks.
Under Britain's critical third party regime, designated providers such as Google Cloud must report serious outages to the FCA and the Bank of England. The FCA said it was engaging with Google over the incident, having told the BBC it was aware of an incident affecting services provided by Google and was engaging with them and affected firms to understand the impact.
An FCA spokesperson said: "People need to be able to access their money and make payments, so we expect firms to fix issues quickly, keep their customers informed, and ensure no one is left out of pocket." The regulator's message put the burden on banks to restore service and look after affected customers.
Dame Meg Hillier asked the Bank of England and the FCA to estimate how widely UK firms and consumers were affected, which services were disrupted and for how long, and what losses or other harm consumers suffered, as well as what redress firms provided. She requested an initial reply by November 4 and a complete response by January 20, 2027.
Three things matter from here. First, whether Google supplies the full incident reporting that the UK critical third party regime requires. Second, whether the EBA and the other European Supervisory Authorities open joint examinations or make binding recommendations. Third, whether the Bank of England and the FCA turn Hillier's questions into formal supervisory improvements for the financial system. A Bank of England spokesperson declined to comment to Reuters.