Barclaycard payments system fails

Retail giants left unable to process payments due to a system failure at Barclaycard this weekend

Credit and debit cards not accepted because of error

Thousands of shoppers were unable to pay by credit or debit card on Saturday afternoon when Barclaycard's processing system crashed and left retailers unable to serve their customers.

Barclaycard said that the delay was the result of a 'technical issue'.

According to the BBC, Sainsbury's said that all of its 872 stores were affected for about 20 minutes, during which time no payments by card were possible.

The site also said that B&Q and Waitrose experienced problems, but were largely able to process their customer's payments using a backup system.

A Barclaycard spokesperson said: "We have conducted a thorough investigation into the issue and have established that it was caused by a systems error which affected our ability to authorise transactions.

"The service has worked normally since the incident, although we continue to monitor it closely, and steps have already been taken to ensure that this issue doesn't reoccur."