Mastercard outage hits Australia due to scheduled update

A scheduled system update caused Mastercard transactions to be declined across Australia on the afternoon of August 15, prompting widespread confusion for shoppers and forcing many businesses to scramble for alternative payment methods. The disruption, which affected digital wallets and card payments nationwide, was resolved within several hours, according to the company.

Customers of major banks including Commonwealth Bank, Westpac, Macquarie, and Bankwest reported widespread failures with tap-and-go payments beginning around midday local time. The outage, logged on the service-tracking website Downdetector, at one point generated more than 1,900 reports in Australia. While ATMs remained operational, digital transactions via Mastercard-linked cards were consistently declined.

Bank officials confirmed the problem stemmed from a global Mastercard issue and advised customers to insert their physical cards and select the savings account option to make payments via the EFTPOS network instead. "We're currently experiencing an issue with Mastercard debit cards. Our teams are working to fix this as a priority and apologise for any inconvenience caused," a notice from Macquarie Bank...