Generator fire at Mada payments network data centre disrupts Saudi payments
Sept 2018Published 12 Oct 2026Responsible editor: Chief Editor
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What happened
On 23 September 2018 a fire broke out in the power generator at the main data centre of the Saudi Payments Network (Mada), which connects all ATMs and point-of-sale terminals in the Kingdom. Mada said services were disrupted that day, affecting payments, including online payments. The fire was put out and services were partially resumed. Mada said services would be resumed gradually so as not to affect the banking systems. The source gives no end time for the disruption.
Contributing factors
The cause of the fire is not reported in the source.
Lessons learned
- Backup generators in data centres are a fire risk in their own right and need inspection, fuel and electrical maintenance, and tested fire detection.
- Restoring a payments or switching network in stages, so that banking systems are not overloaded, is a sound recovery approach to plan in advance.
- Operators of critical payment infrastructure should publish timely updates on service status and recovery to keep banks and customers informed.
More lessons on detection and monitoring, maintenance, inspection and ageing assets, outages, backup supply and restoration, from every incident on the register.
Source
Published 2026-10-12. Written from public reporting. Descriptive, not investigative. See the data accuracy disclaimer.
