Millions of clients have been alerted about challenges in processing certain Mastercard transactions.
NatWest, an FTSE 100 bank, and Stripe, a leading US payments company, have both notified their customers about difficulties with some transactions on the Mastercard network.
In a statement on its website, NatWest announced today that several of its customers were facing disruption when using their Mastercard debit and credit cards for purchases. The bank assured that it is making all efforts to rectify the problem promptly. They reassured customers that ATM cash withdrawals using their cards remained operational.
Stripe, a US-based tech behemoth that enables companies to swiftly process customer payments, issued a similar notice. They reported, “We’re presently scrutinizing increased error rates and response times for Mastercard payments due to an issue in the card network. This outage seems to be beyond Stripe’s infrastructure. We’re tracking updates and will publish more information as it comes in.”
Both Mastercard and NatWest experienced an influx of reports on Downdetector, a website that tracks disruptions in digital services.
An insider close to NatWest stated that the problem pertained mainly to online transactions, emphasizing that this is not merely a NatWest-specific issue, but a widespread problem originating from Mastercard’s end which affects cards globally.
A Mastercard representative said, “We have acknowledged these reports and are investigating them. We can confirm that transactions continue to be successful across our payments network, but some extra services might be temporarily inaccessible. We will provide an update as soon as more information is available.”
A NatWest representative announced, “We acknowledge that some customers who attempted to use their Mastercard debit or credit cards online might have encountered issues while making payments. This problem is impacting a number of banks associated with Mastercard and we’re actively collaborating with them to resolve the issue at the earliest possible.”
