Mastercard Outage Leaves Australians Stranded at Checkout After ‘System Update’
Synopsis
A 90-minute Mastercard outage left Australian shoppers unable to pay for groceries, fuel and other essentials, disrupting card, smartwatch, cash-withdrawal and digital payments across major banks.
Card payments were disrupted in Australia for about 90 minutes on August 15 due to a technical glitch at Mastercard, which was updating its system.
The issue with Mastercard credit cards resulted in declined transactions, cash withdrawals and payments through digital platforms linked to the cards from around 2:25 pm AEST to 4 pm. Commonwealth Bank, Macquarie Bank, NAB and ANZ were among the banks that reported issues with customer payments during the outage.
Payment failures spread across businesses
The Mastercard glitch occurred on a Saturday afternoon, causing some customers to be unable to complete transactions at the point of sale in the middle of shopping. Downdetector recorded approximately 1,700 complaints by 3 pm, with reports coming in from Singapore, Europe, and other regions.
Mastercard announced that the technical difficulty which triggered the Mastercard outage was due to a scheduled system update and, as a result, some transactions were declined. The company confirmed that there were no problems and that everything was operating normally.
The glitch occurs as the payments sector becomes increasingly electronic, with electronic payments becoming the norm for most transactions. According to the Reserve Bank of Australia’s 2025 Consumer Payments Survey, Australians are using cards to make 73 percent of all payments, with cash accounting for just 15 percent.
In addition, the RBA found that device-based payments, which include mobile wallets, accounted for 40 percent of all card payments in 2025, compared to 31 percent in 2022. The shift will have an impact on not only face-to-face payments, but also payments made via smartphones that are connected to Mastercard.
Mastercard network handles large transaction volumes
The payment network that facilitates transactions in more than 220 countries and territories was disrupted in Australia. According to the Mastercard 2025 Annual Report, there were 175.5 billion switched transactions on the network throughout the year, with a gross dollar value of approximately $10.6 trillion.
Mastercard’s net revenue and net income for 2025 were $32.79 billion and $14.97 billion, respectively. The company earned $8.8 billion in net revenue during the last quarter of 2025, which is 18 percent higher than the same period in the previous year.
The Mastercard outage, which left many Australians unable to make payments, was only one of the latest in a series of disruptions to the larger payments system in Australia. Those affected were encouraged to use an alternate payment method, such as EFTPOS savings transaction or cash, if available, during the outage.
The incident comes at a time when Australia’s payment system is becoming more connected and therefore more vulnerable to disruptions.
Source: InformationAGE
Pooja Malik is a business journalist with over six years of experience covering startups, entrepreneurship, and emerging trends. She has previously worked with leading media platforms such as YourStory Media and BW BusinessWorld, where she reported on business, policy, and market developments. Currently, she serves as Editor at The Inspirepreneur Magazine, where she writes and edits stories across business, lifestyle, and travel, with a focus on clarity, accuracy, and reader relevance.
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