Credit-card networks talk of hopes for a cash-free society, but a Visa Inc. outage in Europe Friday showed that vision wasn’t quite ready for prime time.
Visa V, +0.10% experienced a service disruption in parts of Europe on Friday as merchants and consumers tweeted about an inability to use or accept Visa-branded cards, with some businesses posting signs that advised customers to either use cash or cards offered by Mastercard Inc. MA, +2.76% or American Express Co. AXP, -0.05%
Visa said in a statement that service disruption affecting payments across Europe is now resolved.
“Visa Europe’s payment system is now operating at full capacity, and Visa account holders can now use Visa for any of their purchases and at ATMs, as they normally would,” the company said early Saturday.
Visa and Visa Europe remained separate entities when Visa proper went public in 2008, but Visa acquired its European counterpart in 2016. The Visa Europe integration is part of the bull case for Visa’s stock, as some analysts see opportunity ahead as the combined company restructures arrangements and makes technological upgrades in Europe.
“Our goal is to ensure all Visa payments work reliably 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. We fell well short of this goal today and we apologise to all of our partners and Visa account holders for any inconvenience this may have caused,” said Al Kelly, Visa Inc. CEO.
Shares of Visa traded mixed Friday before closing up 0.1%, while Mastercard shares were up 2.7%. Visa’s stock has gained over 14% year-to-date, compared with a 2% gain for the S&P 500 index SPX, +1.08% .