A major payments outage has blindsided Australians, with most of the country’s major digital payment providers suffering an unexplained failure on Saturday afternoon.
Customers across Australia have reported that the tap‑and‑go feature on the Mastercards in their digital wallets has suddenly stopped working, leaving checkouts stalled and shoppers scrambling for backup options.
Users across a wide range of Australian banks have all reported experiencing declining payments when using their phones.
The disruption appears to be affecting both iPhone and Android devices.
According to Down Detector, more than 2000 Australians have reported being unable to make payments since 12pm AWST.
One user facing payment issues has shared a photo of an alert on the CommBank app about Saturday’s outage.
“Mastercard card payments are being declined due to a global Mastercard issue,” the alert read.
“If customers experience a decline, please insert your card and select ‘savings’ to make payment via EFTPOS.
“All other CommBank services, including ATMs, remain available.”
Despite the digital meltdown, physical debit and credit cards are still working normally.
Saturday shoppers have been urged by businesses to bring their physical cards or cash to pay with until the issue is resolved.
More to come.
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