The banks’ card payment system has gone down in a good part of Spain during the morning of this Saturday, complicating card payments in shops and through Bizum, both in shops and in restaurants, as well as in all types of services connected to the financial system, read ATMs and dataphones.
The three large banks in Spain, Caixabank, BBVA and Santander, have confirmed to La Vanguardia that it is a problem with the Redsys platform, which acts as an intermediary between the buyer and the bank, but “which is already recovering.”
The incident has caused social networks to be filled with messages of complaint for the last hour. “In Madrid, card payments have stopped in three neighborhoods and the same thing has happened to a niece in Asturias,” says one user. The same thing is happening in Valencia, and in Barcelona, ??too.
The problems have also extended to social networks such as Wallapop, as users of the same have confirmed to La Vanguardia.
The problem has been widespread and has originated from a failure by Redsys, the entity in charge of managing all communications between payment entities in the country.
According to financial sources, the incident lasted about an hour and “has already been 100% resolved.” In the absence of knowing more details, it is possible that they were customers who “tried to pay with a card from a financial institution other than the one owned by the business or restaurant with which they paid. If the connection was between two payment systems of the same entities the incidence would have been lower”, point out sources familiar with the technical functioning of the payment system.
Not only has it affected the banks, but pharmacies have not been able to place their orders because they use the same connection system to connect with suppliers and said network has also gone down. From the Puenta La Reina pharmacy, in Las Tablas, Madrid, they explain that “the order will not arrive until Monday because the network of the college of pharmacists in Madrid has failed.”
This drop occurs just a few days before Black Friday and just over a month before the Christmas holidays arrive, both periods are when a considerable increase in in-person and online purchases is recorded.
