Venmo Goes Dark

Mobile payments app Venmo suffered a massive outage Tuesday night (Feb. 17), but about an hour later the company reported it had resolved the issue.

Venmo announced on its service page that it was having issues, meaning Venmo users may not be able to send or receive payment via the application. A notification time stamped 6:48 PM EST on its website did not indicate what had caused the outage.

Venmo.com, the app’s API, its Web Interface and its Notification service were all listed as “Major Outage” several hours since Venmo’s initial acknowledgement of the service blackout. Web users visiting Venmo.com were met with a “Venmo is Temporarily Down” message. No word on the disruption had been mentioned on the company’s Twitter account, but apologized for the issue on its @VenmoSupport account. The Next Web was first to cover the blackout.

The app’s most recent reported service outage occurred January 9.

Venmo was acquired in 2012 by mobile payment processing firm Braintree, which launched the app in the EU only months later. “Bringing Venmo Touch to our European merchants allows them to focus on creating great products and services while offering people the easiest way to pay,” Braintree CEO Bill Ready had said at the time. PayPal acquired Braintree – and Venmo along with it – in 2013.

Last November, Venmo announced that it would integrate Apple’s Touch ID security feature into its mobile app. Users can now scan their fingerprint using Touch ID on the most recent versions of Apple iPhone devices. For all older Apple devices and non-Apple handsets, users can still use the PIN protection feature to sign into Venmo.