The cross-party Treasury select committee, chaired by Nicky Morgan MP, has requested answers from Visa about their handling of the failure that swarmed the UK and Europe. On Friday, millions of people across the UK were unable to use their Visa cards for payments. Morgan has labelled the crash ‘deeply worrying’ and questions why ‘part of the country’s payment infrastructure can fail so catastrophically’.
The chief executive of Visa’s European services, Charlotte Hogg, has faced scrutiny by MPs over her handling of the system crash. The committee is seeking a discussion from Hogg regarding compensation for businesses, as well as future prevention strategies to avoid the same errors. Hogg has faced controversy in the past, particularly during her position as deputy governor at the Bank of England. The same committee, then chaired by Andrew Tyrie, claimed Hogg was not able to deputy govern the bank after failing to disclose her brother’s employment status at Barclays. This was deemed a potential conflict of interest as Barclays is regulated by the Bank of England.
Visa have until 15th June to provide answers to the committee’s questions on the crash. They have been warned, however, that they will be asked to give evidence in person if their answers are not sufficient.
