Data Center Outage Cited in Visa Downtime Across Canada

A data center power outage is being blamed for payment processing problems that prevented Visa card holders in Canada from using their cards for most of Monday. Total System Services Inc. (TSS), one of the largest processors of card-payment transactions in North America, said late Monday its systems were back in service after a power outage at a data center interrupted its ability to authorize transactions.

The problems rippled through to customers of Visa customers whose cards were issued by major Canadian banks, including CIBC, Royal Bank of Canada and TD Canada Trust.

Visa Canada said it had restored service to its users as of 5 p.m. Eastern, but as of 7 p.m. RBC was still telling Twitter users that "the VISA system is currently experiencing tech issues."