Massive network outage affects ATMs, POS and internet banking in Canada

A major outage of mobile and internet networks caused widespread disruptions across Canada, affecting banks, police emergency lines and customers.

Rogers Communications said its technical teams were working to restore services as quickly as possible. The company is the leading service provider in Ontario, and along with BCE and Telus, controls 90% of the market share in Canada.

The nationwide outage resulted in some callers facing difficulty reaching emergency services via 911 calls, police across Canada said, including Ottawa and Toronto, its largest city. Interac, which operates an email money transfer service used by several Canadian banks, said the outage was affecting its services.

Toronto-Dominion Bank said it was facing system issues with Interac e-Transfer service. Bank Of Montreal said the outage was affecting financial institutions, toll-free numbers as well as transactions, while Royal Bank of Canada said its ATM and online banking services were affected.

It was the second major outage for Rogers in a little more than a year. In April last year, thousands of its customers reported recurring interruptions to wireless voice and data services for several hours before the company was able to restore full operations to its network.