Updated August 15, 2026 — 4:24pm,first published 3:40pmA global Mastercard issue hit Australia on Saturday afternoon, with card payments being declined in Sydney and Melbourne and some ATMs reporting problems before being resolved about 4pm.A Mastercard outage impacted customers of multiple banks across Australia on Saturday afternoon.Jim RiceService issues website Down Detector recorded thousands of reports of outages for the Commonwealth Bank, Mastercard, ApplePay and Westpac on Saturday afternoon.NAB and the Commonwealth Bank both confirmed the problem was a worldwide Mastercard issue which was in turn impacting their customers.“If customers experience a decline, please insert your card and select ‘savings’ to make payments via EFTPOS,” the Commonwealth Bank said in a statement.“All other CommBank services, including ATMs, remain available.”Mastercard has been contacted for comment.At 4pm, the Commonwealth Bank said that services were being restored. This masthead has confirmed this.Our Breaking News Alert will notify you of significant breaking news when it happens. Get it here.More:Credit cardsBig fourCommonwealth BankMastercardWestpac Banking CorporationNetwork outageNational Australia BankFor subscribersFrom our partners