Maltese banks unaffected by PayPal issue that hit European lenders

A payments glitch at PayPal that caused widespread disruption across European banks earlier this week has not impacted Maltese lenders, BusinessNow.mt can confirm.

The issue, which was first reported in Germany, saw billions of euros in unauthorised direct debits flow through European banks after PayPal’s fraud-detection systems failed to filter out fraudulent transactions.

However, BOV, HSBC, APS and MeDirect all stated that they were not impacted by the issue.

According to the German Savings Banks Association (DSGV), European banks were forced to block payments worth around €10 billion when millions of suspicious transactions were flagged.

PayPal has since acknowledged the disruption, attributing it to a temporary system failure, and said that the problem has been resolved with payment flows returning to normal. The firm added that it is working closely with banks to ensure all affected accounts are updated.

Despite the scale of disruption across the continent, Maltese customers and merchants using PayPal can rest assured that local banks have not experienced any such cases.