The video will start in 8 Cancel

Get our money-saving tips and top offers direct to your inbox with the Mirror Money newsletter Sign up Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

Card payments network Visa is currently experiencing a widespread outage with millions of customers unable to use their cards across the UK and Europe.

This is the network that processes transactions for a number of banks as well thousands of small and large businesses.

The scale of the issue is currently unclear with Visa currently "investigating" the problem which started at around 4pm on Friday, but has ruled out a cyber-hack.

A statement from Visa told The Mirror: "Visa is currently experiencing a service disruption.

"This incident is preventing some Visa transactions in Europe from being processed.

"We are investigating the cause and working as quickly as possible to resolve the situation.

"The issue has not been caused by any unauthorised access or malicious event. We will share an updated statement as we have one."

Mastercard payments are not affected and all payments are operating normally.

“We are seeing nothing abnormal on our network right now,” a spokesman said.

(Image: PA) (Image: REX/Shutterstock) (Image: Bloomberg)

Disappointed shoppers have been unable to purchase items using chip and pin machines with many reporting failed transactions at major supermarkets including Asda, Sainsbury's and Aldi, who pay Visa to manage their card payments.

Mirror Money contacted all three retailers for a comment.

Asda told us it is experiencing difficulties in 'some' stores intermittently.

Another customer on twitter told us "it's chaos" in Asda's Bolton branch.

A Sainsbury’s spokesperson told The Mirror: "We are aware that Visa are currently experiencing problems. We are doing our best to help our customers and apologise for any inconvenience."

Card payments solutions company Paymentsense said "all merchants nationwide" are affected and unable to process transactions.

A Paymentsense alert on twitter said: "There is currently a disruption of service in taking payments from Visa.

"It is affecting all providers across the UK and Ireland.

"We are in touch with Visa to help provide a fix to this, and we'll issue and update via our social channels and email as soon we have one".

'I thought I'd run out of money'

Video Loading Video Unavailable Click to play Tap to play The video will start in 8 Cancel Play now

Customers across the UK and Ireland have been left unable to make card purchases - in a move that could cost businesses millions of pounds in revenue.

No warning was issued to customers ahead of the outage while Visa says it is currently 'investigating' the problem, the exact cause of which remains unknown.

In some cases, customers said they thought they'd run out of money after seeing their cards bounce.

This was the scene at Aldi in Greenbank Road, Plymouth, this afternoon with shoppers describing queues as “mental”.

Elsewhere, New Look also appears to be experiencing technical difficulties on card payments.

The fashion house has declined to comment on how widespread the problem is across stores nationwide.

(Image: Getty)

One customer told The Mirror he found out about the outage after having his First Direct card bounce in Costco.

Meanwhile Lloyds Bank said it's investigating the matter after receiving complaints about declined payments.

"We’ve received some reports from customers experiencing issues using their cards this afternoon & are currently investigating," a statement read.

Should I withdraw cash and are ATM machines working?

(Image: Getty Images)

Cash machines are working, however with an exceptionally high volume of people using them, it's advised to avoid busy city centre ATMs.

That said, anyone heading out tonight is being urged to withdraw cash beforehand to avoid disappointment especially if you're looking to make a card payment.

Alternatively, you can pay using a Mastercard or Amex card instead.

The outage comes on the weekend after payday and just a month after a TSB crash that left thousands without access to their money following an IT migration that went wrong.

Alex Neill, Which? managing director of home products and services, said: "In case this disruption is ongoing, customers should consider taking steps to protect themselves this evening.

"It's worth taking cash out of ATMs - although it may be best to avoid walking round with too much. If you do have MasterCard or Amex cards, or even PayPal depending how you've set it up, then you'll be able to use these.

“We'd also strongly advise people to keep any evidence of extra expenses they’ve incurred in order to try to claim them back.

“Sadly, the outage could also lead to phishing emails, texts and scams, so beware of messages from people claiming to be Visa.”