Customers shopping in Sainsbury's this lunchtime were unable to pay for their items by card.

It is believed an external fault forced supermarket checkouts to only accept cash payments. Sainsbury's is believed to have been one of a number of businesses affected.

One customer on Twitter contacted the store to ask 'Card payments down in my local Sainsbury's. Apparently it's a national outage' while another complained 'Sainsbury's it would be good if you told people prior to going in and doing their shop that your tills aren’t accepting card payments! Just wasted 40 minutes on my day off doing shopping I can’t buy!'

Elsewhere social media users were also reporting problems with accessing the Sainsbury's app and making payments for insurances which staff had been unable to take because of a system fault.

It is not clear if the two issues are connected.

Queues were also reported at cash machines outside Sainsbury's stores as customers try to withdraw cash to pay for their shopping.

The problem, which is believed to have been an external fault that also affected card terminals at some other retailers and businesses, has now been rectified said the supermarket.

A Sainsbury's spokesman said: “Contactless payments were briefly unavailable in our stores this afternoon. We’re back up and running and apologise to our customers for any inconvenience this caused.”

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