M&S card payments system fails across UK stores

A quarter of Marks & Spencer's 1,035 UK stores were unable to accept card payments after the retailer experienced a "technical glitch".

Almost 300 M&S stores across the UK were unable to take credit or debit card payments for part of Tuesday, while others could just take payments from just a handful of tills, an M&S spokesperson said.

M&S blamed "technical difficulties" for the error and stated it was doing its best to resolve the issue "as quickly as possible".

The grocery giant told shoppers on Wednesday that the issue had been resolved but did warn that limited problems could still persist.

In June, Visa reported a 24-hour "technical issue" which prevented consumers from making transactions.

Retailers, including the likes of Tesco and Sainsbury's, experienced failures. Visa later claimed the failure was caused by a malfunction at a data centre.

However, this issue appears to have affected just M&S.

"We would like to thank our customers for their patience and cooperation yesterday," the retailer said in a Wednesday morning statement.

As of 1200 BST on Wednesday, M&S shares had lost 0.34% to 296.70p.