VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) –Visa is blaming a third party provider for problems with its system earlier today.

It left people across the country unable to complete transactions for a few hours.

The credit card company says it is not something within the Visa network.

Retail expert David Ian Gray says when something like this happens, it doesn’t impact most people making small purchases because these days people carry multiple cards.

“But a bigger ticket item, you’ve got a particular card you want to put that on especially if you use credit and so in those cases it may be that they have to come back again at a future date or maybe go somewhere else,” says Gray.

He adds, Visa has some explaining to do to retailers.

“Retailers spend a lot of money with Visa, the fees aren’t small and they’re going to be quite unhappy about this I’m sure, as are the banks that are handling the Visa cards.”

Gray says it’s good this happened on a Monday in a traditionally low selling month and not on a busier day.