A widespread malfunction in Israel’s national payment system disrupted transactions across the country on Thursday, forcing many businesses to request cash-only payments.
The issue was reported by Automated Bank Services (Shva), the company responsible for Israel’s automated banking and payment infrastructure. "Our professional teams are investigating the cause of the failure," the company said in a statement.
This is not the first disruption to affect Israel’s payment processing networks. In November, a malfunction at Credit Guard, a clearing service provider for major retail chains, caused widespread payment issues. A month earlier, a Shva system failure impacted businesses relying on servers abroad.
Cybersecurity concerns have also played a role in past disruptions. Over the past year, several payment system failures have been linked to cyberattacks, raising questions about the resilience of Israel’s financial infrastructure. Authorities have yet to determine whether the current outage is related to a cyber threat.