European banks hit by rogue PayPal payments worth 'billions'

European banks hit by rogue PayPal payments worth 'billions'

The BBC has approached PayPal for comment.

The DSGV confirmed to the BBC there had been "incidents involving unauthorized direct debits initiated by PayPal against various credit institutions".

It said payments were paused on Monday when lenders reported millions of suspicious direct debits from the payment firm.

The German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) says payments worth in the region of 10 billion euros (£8.6bn) have had to be blocked, after PayPal's fraud-checking system failed.

European banks have seen widespread unauthorised direct debits from PayPal accounts, the German Savings Banks Association (DSGV) says.

It told Reuters "certain transactions from our banking partners and potentially their customers" had been affected by a temporary service interruption.

"We quickly identified the cause and are working closely with our banking partners to ensure that all accounts have been updated," the PayPal spokesperson said.

The DSGV said PayPal had "acknowledged the disruptions" and "assured" it had resolved the problem.

"Payment transactions to and from PayPal have been running normally again," it said.

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