Card payment problem causes many businesses to only accept cash

Technology problem stops debit and credit card payments at some shops, restaurants and pubs.
A problem with credit and debit card payment processing has forced many businesses to revert to just accepting cash.
The outage appears to have begun on Friday afternoon. Our journalist visited a pub and a shop in Central London at around 5pm on Friday evening, both of which were unable to accept card payments.
And the 'cash only' signs were still out today across the nation, with all of the retailers at Stafford service station on the M6 with the exception of M&S unable to accept cards.
The problem appears to lie with card processing company Global Payments, which is working to resolve the issue.
HSBC, which uses Global Payments' software to power its card processing machines, said on Twitter: "We are aware of an issue with merchant payments. Our third party provider @GlobalPaymentsUK are working hard to resolve".
If you're going out today, you might want to withdraw some cash or phone ahead to see if card machines are working to avoid being caught with no means to pay.
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