Spanish authorities seek details on pre-Black Friday payment network crash -November 24, 2023 at 12:33 pm EST

MADRID, Nov 24 (Reuters) – The Bank of Spain has asked
for detailed information after recent disruptions to the
country’s payments network and is closely monitoring the
situation together with the government, two sources with
knowledge of the matter said on Friday.

Spain’s largest payments platform Redsys crashed last
weekend and again on Nov. 23, ahead of Black Friday, which is
one of the busiest periods of commercial activity.

The online Spanish platform acts as an intermediary between
banks, shops and buyers to ensure the security of transactions.
It says it handles more than 45 million payments per month.

A source close to the central bank said it had not opened a
formal case into Redsys, which is owned by Spanish banks
including Santander, BBVA and Caixabank
and handles their electronic payments business.

The Spanish government was also looking into the
disruptions, a source at the Economy Ministry said, without
giving further details.

Customers complained on social media about failed ATM
withdrawals and credit card payments on Nov. 18. Redsys
responded by saying disruptions had been resolved and were due
to internal communication lines, ruling out any external attack.

Redsys suffered further disruptions on Nov. 23.

On Friday, the company said that the technical incidents
that took place on both days had been resolved and the service
restored.

Redsys further said that both incidents were one-offs and
independent of each other.

“This is the first time that such an incident has occurred
in the more than 12 years that the company has been providing
this kind of service in Spain,” it said.

Last Saturday’s incident affected 2.5% of the electronic
payment transactions carried out that day in Spain, while
Thursday’s incident affected 1.7%, according to Redsys.

European Central Bank (ECB) data shows cash payments in
Spain fell by 18% between 2019 and 2022, a figure only surpassed
in the euro zone by Cyprus, where transactions fell 23%.

Redsys competes with another payment provider in Spain,
which belongs to Cecabank and holds a market share of about 15%.
(Reporting by Jesús Aguado; Additional reporting by Emma
Pinedo; Editing by Alexander Smith, Kirsten Donovan)