Worldline says payment services disruptions in Italy not yet resolved

MILAN (Reuters) – French digital payments company Worldline on Friday said gas roadworks accidentally damaged its network connection to its data centres in Italy, disrupting services for customers that have yet to be resolved.

The disruption occurred amid the busy Black Friday shopping season.

Worldline said in a statement its payment services have been disrupted since Thursday morning, mainly in Italy but also in other unnamed markets.

“The cause of the interruption has been identified. The installation of gas pipes by local authorities severely damaged our provider’s cables and network. Restoration work by our supplier is expected to start later today,” the company said.

Worldline added it was working “tirelessly” to see if it could reactivate services before its physical infrastructure is repaired, and apologized to consumers and shopkeepers for the inconvenience.

In a separate statement, Italian payments group Nexi confirmed that Worldline had yet to resolve the problem, and said it had launched an investigation and was reserving the right to take actions to protect the company and its customers.

The Bank of Italy also weighed in, saying it was monitoring the situation. “Some of the impacted payment services have been reactivated, while malfunctions remain for some credit and debit card circuits,” the central bank said.

(Reporting by Elisa Anzolin and Alvise Armellini; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)