Last night, millions of Australians went to sleep unable to access their own money. The apps weren’t working. They couldn’t send money. Their money was stuck in limbo
Over the past 22 days, banks have suffered outages in 4 countries. Not over 10 years. Not over a year. In 22 days
Any one of these would normally be the biggest news of the year
Westpac: From Tuesday night into Wednesday, the app, online banking, PayID and Osko went down. By 4:55 p.m., there were 1,714 outage reports. One customer couldn’t pay by card. There were also posts saying ATMs were down
Commonwealth Bank, NAB, ANZ: Outage reports surged on the same day
Japanese credit unions: On November 6, 128 credit unions went down simultaneously. ATMs, deposits, withdrawals and counter services were halted at around 3,430 branches for up to 5.5 hours
Shinkin West Japan Center: One shared system behind all 128. A single piece of equipment failed, affecting 29 prefectures
Ueno Bank: Paraguay’s central bank shut the bank down on November 3. It has around 3 million customers. The app, cards and ATMs went down
Revolut: Went down on October 20 because of a Google Cloud “power event” in London. More than 1,500 reports by just after 8 a.m.
Lloyds, Halifax, HSBC, Barclays: The same outage, the same morning. Customers couldn’t access their own money
And this still doesn’t even cover half the list
It all hinges on a single point of failure. One power event in London. One shared system in Japan
People in the crypto community are saying this is a push to put all money on-chain. Tokenized deposits. 24/7 payments. Every transaction. Every wallet. Balances that can be frozen with the flip of a switch, yet never called a CBDC. Without privacy, it’s the biggest surveillance apparatus in history
Anyone using a banking app, receiving their salary through instant transfers, or keeping all their money in one bank could be affected
Keep a little cash at home. Open a second account at another bank. Take screenshots of your balances
This is not a normal month for the banking industry. This is something different
I’m posting about every confirmed bank outage as it happens. Follow me so you know before your own app goes silent
