No Power, No Phone… No Panic, Cash is King!

On 28 April, Spain, Portugal, and parts of France experienced a widespread electrical outage that plunged about 55 million people into a pre-electric age. The blackout had significant impacts on digital payments and cash demand, highlighting the vulnerabilities of modern payment systems during infrastructure failures.

Spain was hit by a major power outage on Monday 28 April, which caused major disruptions across the country, forcing businesses to shut down along with trains, subways and even some airline flights.

The reaction across Spain ranged from frantic stockpiling to confused bewilderment to calmly hunkering down and making do with old-fashioned electricity-free ways of living, for example battery-powered radios that became the only source of external communication in the absence of mobile data and the Internet.