Just in time for many members’ paydays, Fiserv has experienced a widespread outage. It caused critical disruptions today across digital banking platforms, payments infrastructure and Zelle, which has become a popular service among credit unions and their members. Fiserv serves hundreds of credit unions, including Navy Federal, which is among the credit unions affected.
What Happened
Beginning in the early hours of Friday morning, credit unions nationwide began reporting issues with online banking, mobile apps, debit card processing, and Zelle functionality. Outages have ranged from degraded performance to complete downtime. By midday, thousands of users had taken to social media and platforms like DownDetector to report problems accessing accounts, initiating transfers and making payments.
While Fiserv has not issued a statement explaining the cause or full scope of the disruption, early reports suggest the outage originated from internal network issues or a cascading failure within its cloud-based infrastructure. Zelle, in a public statement, attributed its service interruptions to a problem at a “third-party service provider” — later confirmed to be Fiserv.
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Credit Unions Bear the Brunt
Many credit unions operate with smaller in-house IT teams and depend heavily on third-party vendors like Fiserv to power not only their core banking systems, but also cards, ACH and more. That reliance has become painfully evident today.
Several mid-sized credit unions across the country posted emergency updates to members on social media and their websites. Common messages included apologies for unavailable digital banking tools, delays in processing ACH payments, and warnings about debit card declines at point-of-sale terminals.
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Members attempting to send rent or utility payments via Zelle reported error messages and transaction delays. Paychecks allotted for groceries or weekend outings may not be credited promptly. Credit union leaders must consider not only operational and financial risk but also reputational risk.
Why This Matters for Credit Union Leaders
This isn’t the first time Fiserv has experienced major service outages. A January 2025 power-related incident impacted payment processing for several days, and when a freak snowstorm hit Texas in 2021, Fiserv went down; the company placed its servers on the backs of big rigs and shipped them to Georgia to warm up. James Green, an enterprise risk management expert with Origami Risk at the time, had much to say about that previous situation. Watch the video here!
Credit unions are often at the mercy of their core processors, and there are steps to protect themselves, such as writing the sharing of BC/DR plans, testing and results into the contracts that leaders sign.
Bottomline: Key takeaways for CU executives and IT leaders
- Vendor diversification is no longer optional. While Fiserv remains a major player in the core banking space, relying too heavily on a single provider exposes credit unions to systemic and myriad other risks.
- Business continuity planning (BCP) must go beyond the branch. Digital banking is now the primary member interface. Downtime translates into immediate member dissatisfaction and potential churn.
- Transparent member communications are essential. Even without complete information, institutions that posted timely updates today retained more trust than those that remained silent. If you’d like help with a crisis communications plan, please contact our in-house communications consultant, Sarah Snell Cooke, here.
- Incident response drills should include third-party failure scenarios. With increased regulatory scrutiny around operational resilience, preparedness is a competitive advantage.
Looking Ahead
As Fiserv works to restore services and share the cause of this critical paralysis of a large chunk of the US banking system, credit union leaders must think about next steps, which might include strategic reviews of core relationships, cloud dependencies, real-time payment integrations and more.
Credit unions want to remain relevant to their members. Members expect 24/7, seamless digital access. And they don’t care if you point fingers at your core; your people are the ones manning the phones and the counter when they reach out. They don’t care whose fault it is – they’re scared they can’t pay their mortgage or buy groceries for their families. Outages like today’s make it clear: the credit union takes the blame when the vendor goes down.