The Coop payment issues affected stores across the entire country. Karolina Nilsson, member and communications manager for Coop Värmland, said the problems were caused by a technical error at their provider Telia. However, press chief Carlos Cancino offered a different account, stating the cause is unclear and they are troubleshooting a problem with a supplier. There is no prognosis for when the problem will be fully resolved.
Locally, the disruptions were severe. The Coop payment issues affected about 30 of 43 Coop stores in Värmland. Long queues formed at Coop City in central Karlstad in the afternoon. It was possible to pay with some cards sometimes, but the whole system was slow, according to officials. Customers were advised to use Swish or cash as payment alternatives.
Separately, Swedbank has been hit by new operational disruptions since Monday, April 14, risking delays in important payments to thousands of customers. The bank states that the fault is not in its own systems but with an external party. Swedbank lacks a prognosis for when everything will function normally again.
Nordea customers are still reporting problems with bank services on Thursday, specifically with viewing accounts and balances in online banking. A Nordea customer claims that hundreds of euros disappeared from their account on Tuesday morning and have not been returned. Nordea assures that the problem itself is fixed, but advises customers to clear browser cache or try another browser for viewing account and card transactions in online banking. The bank responded on Wednesday around 6 PM that for some customers, account and card transactions are not yet visible in online banking but are in mobile banking. There have been separate problems with payments being credited to recipients' accounts, with most handled but a small part requiring manual processing. Some Nordea customers were charged twice for MobilePay payments on Wednesday. Nordea clarifies that there were no problems with MobilePay payments on Wednesday, but on Tuesday there were intermittent disruptions in card payments causing duplicate reservations, including for MobilePay.
Other Swedish entities have also faced technical problems. Norsk Tipping has technical problems making it impossible to play on Oddsen. Several banks were reportedly affected by technical problems on Wednesday, as was the police. There are currently problems logging into Ica-banken, in the app and via internet banking. There is no prognosis for when the problem can be solved.
These Swedish incidents follow a pattern of recent banking outages internationally. In the UK, payment delays affected customers of HSBC, Virgin Money, and Nationwide. Outages affected more than 7,000 customers, disrupting online and mobile banking services. Thousands of UK bank customers struggled to access accounts on Friday. IT failures also affected customers of TSB, Nationwide, First Direct, and Lloyds Banking Group, including its Lloyds, Halifax, and Bank of Scotland brands. This is the second month in a row users faced delays on crucial payment days.
Political and regulatory reactions in the UK have been swift. MPs on the Treasury committee demanded answers from banks and wrote to chief executives of Lloyds, NatWest, Santander, Nationwide, Barclays, and HSBC in early February. Friday's outages raised further concerns among MPs, with the Treasury committee assessing options and considering next steps next week. UK Finance defended its members, saying they work hard to fix IT problems and invest heavily in systems.
Specific UK bank incidents illustrate the scope. On Monday, Lloyds Bank and Halifax were hit by an issue leaving customers unable to receive payments. This followed a major Barclays outage that began on Friday and continued into the weekend, leaving many unable to access funds on payday. Lloyds said its systems returned to normal by late morning. NatWest fixed an issue that left customers unable to use the mobile app, with some unable to access accounts. NatWest apologised to customers for any inconvenience caused. Customers reported problems with NatWest's online service, including error messages when trying to make payments.
The scale of UK outages is significant. In May, major banks disclosed that 1.2 million people were affected by outages in the UK in 2024. Nine major banks and building societies had around 803 hours, equivalent to 33 days, of tech outages since 2023.
International context shows similar patterns. At least seven Australian banks were hit by a network outage at a third-party software supplier on February 15. Zengin-Net, Japan's payment clearing network, malfunctioned in October, affecting customers at 11 banks. The Monetary Authority of Singapore punished banks after a spate of IT outages in 2023.
Technical causes and resolution timelines for Coop and Swedbank issues remain unknown. The scale and root cause of Nordea problems, and potential interconnections between global outages, are unclear. Future regulatory and political responses to recurring banking IT failures are still being determined.