Records on DownDetector show that hundreds of complaints from disgruntled customers who couldn't purchase their groceries were made to retail behemoths including Sainsburys, ASDA, and M&S.

A representative for Sainsbury's told Sky News, "This was caused by a problem with our third-party payment supplier. As per usual, we're taking all payments and keeping an eye on the matter. We apologize for any trouble that this may have brought about."

On Thursday morning at 8:00 am, customers in central London reported having trouble completing payments; however, later in the day, those complaints decreased.

A Visa representative offered the following statement on the circumstances: "We are aware that this morning, a merchant payment provider reported difficulties that affected certain cardholders. There are reports that this problem has been fixed. The systems of Visa are still up and running.

According to Mastercard, "We are working with our partners to gather more information and are aware of some payment transaction issues at select merchants in the UK." As of right now, there is no evidence that these problems are connected to our network.

It has subsequently been determined that Worldline's service breakdown caused the outage. "We can confirm that the Mastercard network has been operating normally and that yesterday's issues were not related to our systems," a Mastercard representative subsequently stated.

"Today's payment outages shine a fresh light on the continued importance of cash and why the march to a cashless society is a bad idea," said Andrew Martin, CEO and Founder of SMEB, in response to criticisms of depending only on cashless payments. A rising number of establishments in the UK are identifying themselves as "cashless" venues, which raises questions about how they handle technological difficulties like these and the annoyance it must inflict on their patrons.