Card payments working again in Germany after nationwide disruption

German shoppers relying on paying by credit or debit card breathed a sigh of relief on Thursday after a nationwide disruption of the card payments system was fixed.

A spokesman for the German Banking Industry Committee, an industry association, said it had been informed that "the technical fault, which temporarily affected debit and credit card payments, has been lifted."

Payments with all cards at retail outlets could now operate as normal again, the spokesman said.

In addition to card payments, there were also been problems reported when trying to take cash out from cash machines, and in trying to use the cards abroad.

A cyberattack was ruled out, and the fault is attributed to problems at First Data, an IT service provider owned by the US group Fiserv, a company spokesman said.