When the internet or card payments stop

A little cash at home is the whole answer. Only 17% of UK adults keep any (LINK Cash Index, published May 2026), yet 41% say they would reach for cash on hand if digital payments stopped. Your money is not gone; only the way of reaching it has stopped.

First, the calm bit

A payments outage is an inconvenience, not a loss. Nobody has ever lost a penny because a card terminal in a supermarket stopped talking to a bank for three hours.

These events are short, they are usually fixed the same day, and the only people they genuinely strand are the ones carrying no cash at all. That is a solvable problem, and it costs about the price of a weekly shop to solve permanently.

So this is a short page. What breaks, why a couple of notes in a drawer covers it, and why your balance is fine.

What actually breaks

Payments lean on a chain: power, a data connection, the shop’s till system, the card network, and your bank. Break any link and the checkout stops, even though every other link is healthy.

Card terminals in shops. The most visible failure. A “cash only” sign on the door of a supermarket is the normal first symptom.
Cash machines. Some ATMs stay up on their own power and connection and some do not, so queues build at the ones that work.
Online and mobile banking. If the outage is at your bank, the app is the thing that stops. Your account still exists and your balance is unchanged.
Contactless on the bus or train. Where the fare is taken by card tap, that stops with everything else.
Mobile signal. In an outage that is really a power cut, phone masts can be affected, and a phone with no data cannot open a banking app anyway.
The home phone. Ofcom is blunt about the new digital landlines: “Digital landlines need mains electricity and will not work in a power cut unless there is a battery back-up” (checked 30 August 2026). If you rely on your landline and have no usable mobile signal, Ofcom says your provider “must offer you, for free, a back-up solution such as a battery back-up unit for your home”, and that “This back-up must last for at least one hour in a power cut, but some providers have back-ups that last up to seven hours”. Worth a phone call before you need it.

That list is not a running order. We looked for published figures on which system fails first and how long cash machine and phone mast batteries hold out, and neither LINK nor Ofcom publishes anything we could stand behind, so we are not going to invent a sequence. Assume anything on the list can go at once, and plan for that instead.

The clearest recent illustration is the Iberian event of April 2025. NESO records that “On April 28, parts of the Iberian Peninsula were without power for up to 19 hours”, which “left many homes, businesses, and essential services without power or relying on back-up supplies” (NESO, checked 29 August 2026). Card payments failed widely across the affected area, as reported at the time.

NESO’s own assessment is reassuring about Great Britain. It says the GB electricity network is well protected against the sequence of events that led to that blackout, and that NESO has already taken action to mitigate many of the risks involved (checked 29 August 2026). The Iberian event is useful as a picture of what a bad day looks like, not as a forecast.

Why a little cash is the entire answer

This is the rare readiness problem with one clean fix, and the national numbers back it up.

LINK’s Cash Index, published May 2026, found that 17% of UK adults keep a stash of cash at home for emergencies. Asked what they would do in a disruption to digital payments, 54% said they would withdraw cash, 41% said they would use cash on hand, and 36% said they would use cash kept at home. Separately, 15% keep cash specifically for that scenario (LINK, checked 29 August 2026).

Look at those two facts together. More than half the country’s plan is to go and withdraw cash during the outage, which is exactly when the cash machines are queued or down. The 17% who already have some at home simply carry on with their day.

LINK also found that 56% identify cash as vital during digital payment outages, and that 61% had used cash in the past two weeks in 2026 (checked 29 August 2026). Cash is not a relic. It is the offline mode of the payment system.

How much, and in what notes, is covered on the cash at home page and answered briefly in how much cash to keep at home.

The paper list nobody has

When the internet goes, so does your address book, your booking references and your bank’s phone number, because all of them live behind a screen that needs a connection.

The government’s preparedness guidance is to keep “important phone numbers on paper and store them somewhere easy to find in a power cut” (GOV.UK Prepare, checked 29 August 2026). It also suggests keeping important documents such as passports, birth certificates and insurance policies where you can find them.

A single index card is enough:

Your bank’s phone number, from the back of your card.
Two or three family or friend mobile numbers, written out in full.
Your GP surgery.
105 for a power cut in England, Scotland and Wales, or 03457 643643 in Northern Ireland (GOV.UK Prepare, checked 29 August 2026).
Your energy supplier and your water company.
Your insurer and policy number.

Put it in the drawer with the cash. Both are useless in an app.

Your money is not gone

This is the part that keeps people awake, so it is worth stating plainly.

An outage is a communications failure, not an accounting one. Your balance is a record held by your bank, and it does not change because a terminal cannot reach it. When service returns, the balance is what it was, and any payments that failed simply did not happen.

Behind that, UK deposits are protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. FSCS says: “If you hold money with a UK-authorised bank, building society or credit union that fails, we’ll automatically compensate you up to £120,000 per eligible person, per bank, building society or credit union.” The limit rose to £120,000 on 1 December 2025 (FSCS, checked 29 August 2026). That protection is about a firm failing, which is a different and much rarer thing than an outage, and the compensation is automatic.

We do not give financial advice here. If you want to understand how the protection applies to your own accounts, FSCS and MoneyHelper both explain it for free.

What to do on the day

Fifteen minutes of calm, in order.

Check whether it is you or everyone. Try a second card from a different bank, or ask the person behind the till what they are seeing.
Pay with the cash you have and keep the receipt.
Do not keep retrying a failed payment. Repeated attempts are how people end up with duplicate pending charges to unpick later.
Leave the cash machine queue alone unless you genuinely need money today.
Check your bank’s status page or social account if you have a connection, rather than ringing and waiting.
Write down anything that failed, with the time, so you can check it settled correctly afterwards.
Check the statement a few days later. Failed and duplicated payments show up there. If something has been taken twice, MoneyHelper’s guide to sorting a problem with a payment sets out the route, starting with your own bank or card provider. [VERIFY: what MoneyHelper actually says about duplicated or disputed card payments, and the timescales — moneyhelper.org.uk blocked automated checks on 30 August 2026, so read the page by hand before publication]

If the outage is really a power cut, the power cut page covers the rest of the house.

What this asks of your body

Not much, and that is worth saying. The likely physical demand is a longer walk to a shop that is still trading, or carrying a shop home because the bus reader is down and the taxi wants a card. It is a shopping-bags-and-a-mile problem rather than an athletic one. The five ready body tests include the carry and the walk, so you will know in ten minutes whether that is an errand or an ordeal.

Frequently asked questions

Why are card payments not working today?

Usually a fault somewhere in the chain between the shop’s till and the card network, or an outage at one bank. It is almost always fixed within hours. Try a card from a different bank to work out whether the problem is yours or everyone’s.

Is my money safe if my bank’s app is down?

Yes. An app outage is a connection problem, not an accounting one, and your balance is unchanged. Separately, deposits with a UK-authorised bank, building society or credit union are protected by FSCS up to £120,000 per eligible person, per firm (FSCS, checked 29 August 2026).

How much cash should I keep at home for an outage?

LINK found 17% of UK adults keep cash at home for emergencies and 15% keep it specifically for a disruption to digital payments (published May 2026). The amount that suits your household is covered on the cash at home page, in small notes rather than fifties.

Will cash machines still work in a payments outage?

Some will and some will not, depending on where the fault is and whether the machine has power and a connection. LINK found 54% of people would try to withdraw cash during a disruption, which is why queues form. Cash already at home avoids the queue entirely.

Do shops have to accept cash?

No. The Bank of England’s legal tender explainer puts it plainly: “A shop owner can choose what to accept”, and on the belief that “legal tender” obliges a shop to take your money, “that is not the case” (Bank of England, checked 30 August 2026). In practice, when card systems fail, shops that can take cash do, and LINK found 56% of people see cash as vital during digital payment outages.

What happens to a payment that failed halfway?

Nothing, in most cases. A payment that did not complete did not take the money, though a pending authorisation can show for a day or two before dropping off. Check your statement a few days later, and take anything that has gone twice to your bank or card provider. MoneyHelper explains that route for free.

Would I be warned about a big outage?

Possibly. The UK government’s Emergency Alerts service “provides warning and advice in a life threatening emergency” and is sent to phones in a defined area (GOV.UK, checked 29 August 2026). A payments outage on its own would not meet that bar; a wider emergency causing one might.

Sources & review

LINK Cash Index, LINK, published 9 May 2026: 17% keep cash at home for emergencies; in a disruption to digital payments 54% would withdraw cash, 41% would use cash on hand and 36% would use cash kept at home; 15% keep cash specifically for that scenario; 56% see cash as vital during digital payment outages; 61% used cash in the past two weeks. Checked 29 August 2026.
Reflections on the April 2025 Iberian event, NESO: “On April 28, parts of the Iberian Peninsula were without power for up to 19 hours”, the effect on homes, businesses and essential services, and NESO’s assessment of GB resilience. The card payment failures are as reported at the time. Checked 29 August 2026.
Get prepared for emergencies, UK Government: keeping important phone numbers on paper, keeping important documents accessible, and the 105 and Northern Ireland power cut numbers. Checked 29 August 2026.
Banks and building societies, Financial Services Compensation Scheme: the £120,000 per eligible person per firm protection limit and the 1 December 2025 change. Checked 29 August 2026.
Emergency Alerts, UK Government: the description of the service as warning and advice in a life threatening emergency. Checked 29 August 2026.
What is legal tender?, Bank of England: “A shop owner can choose what to accept”; the common belief that legal tender obliges a shop to accept a payment form is “not the case”; legal tender is about settling debts, and debit cards, cheques and contactless are not legal tender anywhere. Checked 30 August 2026.
Moving landline phones to digital technology: what you need to know, Ofcom: “Digital landlines need mains electricity and will not work in a power cut unless there is a battery back-up”; providers must offer a free back-up solution to customers who rely on their landline; “This back-up must last for at least one hour in a power cut, but some providers have back-ups that last up to seven hours”. Checked 30 August 2026. Ofcom publishes no equivalent figure for mobile mast back-up, and LINK publishes none for cash machines, so this page gives no such number.
How to sort a problem with a payment, MoneyHelper: the route for a payment that has gone wrong, starting with your bank or card provider. This page blocks automated checks; its contents carry a [VERIFY] tag above and need reading by hand at review. Checked 30 August 2026.

Reviewed by: TBC-money. Review date: 29 August 2026. Items marked [VERIFY] need checking before publication.