Moneris network outage causes widespread disruption of credit, debit payments

Credit- and debit-processing firm Moneris confirmed it experienced a network outage on Saturday amid widespread reports of problems with customer payment terminals in several parts of Canada.

In an email to CBC News, the company said the outage lasted about an hour and a half.

"Earlier this afternoon, Moneris experienced an intermittent network outage affecting our customers' ability to process transactions for approximately 90 minutes," a spokesperson said in the email.

"We have resolved the network outage and returned transaction processing to normal. Merchants may experience some transaction slowness while systems catch up."

People posting on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, reported problems in several parts of Canada, including British Columbia, Winnipeg and Mississauga, Ont.

Moneris did not say how widespread the outage was, or what caused it.

"This affected many of our merchants across the country. We continue to investigate the root cause of the issue," a company spokesperson said in a later email.

"There are no indications this appears to be cyber-attack related and all transaction systems are functioning normally again."

The outage prompted B.C. Ferries to issue a travel advisory due to problems on board its fleet.

B.C. Ferries has since reported that its problems have been resolved. Moneris's website was also down for part of Saturday. The company says it processes for more than 325,000 merchant locations in Canada.