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30 hours of chaos: when Italy returned to cash

17.12.2024

Between November 28 and 29, 2024, one of the most significant failures of digital payment systems in Europe occurred. For almost 30 hours, millions of citizens and businesses faced the impossibility of conducting transactions with credit and debit cards, causing enormous disruptions in everyday areas such as shopping, transportation, and even healthcare.

The nightmare began at 11:25 a.m. on November 28. The issue simultaneously affected several payment systems: Bancomat, PagoBancomat, and partially even international giants like Visa and Mastercard. The largest Italian banks, from UniCredit to Intesa San Paolo, were suddenly brought to a standstill.

The cause of the failure seems to lie in a disruption of connectivity between banks and payment systems. At Nexi, the main payment network, responsibility was attributed to the operator Worldline, which in an official statement blamed third parties for a malfunction in its Italian data centers. Various media outlets reported, without citing sources, that the problem might have been caused by the severing of some cables between Lugano and Bellinzona during maintenance work on a gas pipeline.

Chain reaction: Since many acquirers use the same infrastructure, a technical issue at a central node (Worldline) can paralyze the operations of all connected services.

The scenes across Italy were unbelievable: from the impossibility of paying for purchases, with thousands of abandoned shopping carts, to the inability to access medical services in hospitals, as it was impossible to pay the "healthcare ticket." (Ed. Note: in Italy, there is an "outdated system," far from the Swiss healthcare model). Black Friday turned into a literal black Friday.

The economic impacts were enormous. In a country where about 1.2 billion euros flow through digital payments daily, the failure caused losses estimated at at least 100 million euros for small retailers alone. This does not account for indirect damages: lost sales, wasted time, and missed opportunities.

The crisis was eventually resolved late in the afternoon of November 29, when services were gradually restored. However, the questions raised by this event are numerous and alarming, first and foremost: how can such a critical system be so vulnerable?