Payment outages put sales at risk

FreedomPay says payment system failures are putting up to £1.7 billion of annual retail and hospitality sales at risk in the UK. The study, produced with Retail Economics and based on surveys of 2,000 UK consumers and 200 retail and hospitality managers conducted in February 2026, measured the commercial and operational effect of recurring payment disruption.

UK businesses reported an average of 5.2 major payment disruptions a year, with 72% concentrated during peak trading periods. Retail accounted for £1.2 billion of total at-risk revenue, while hospitality and leisure contributed a further £494 million. FreedomPay said that restoring payment systems within the first five minutes can prevent more than 90% of potential losses. Between minutes eight and 13 of an outage, industry losses can exceed £50 million per minute as customers abandon purchases.

The research also recorded the effect on frontline staff. Some 52% of managers said they had experienced verbal abuse or confrontational behaviour from customers during payment failures. Fewer than half of businesses had alternative network solutions in place, and only 40% offered offline card processing. Among consumers, most said frustration begins after seven minutes, 13 minutes is the maximum wait before abandonment, and 19% said they had walked away from an intended purchase during disruption.

Chris Kronenthal, President, FreedomPay, said: “The UK’s relationship with payment resilience is unique in that businesses are beginning to truly understand. Our research confirms that retailers and hospitality operators across the country are worried about more than just lost sales, it’s the lost trust that remains their biggest focus.” Richard Lim, CEO, Retail Economics, said: “The data shows that customer tolerance is measured in minutes, not hours, with abandonment accelerating quickly once delays extend beyond that point.”