Credit card company Visa says a technical issue which prevented payments being processed has been resolved.

It meant that customers in Ireland and Europe were prevented from using Visa for payments on Friday.

The company says the issue was the result of a hardware failure within one of its European systems.

It says it was not associated with any unauthorised access or cyber attack.

File photo | Image: Sebastian Gollnow/DPA/PA Images

Visa Europe's payment system is now operating at full capacity, and account holders can use Visa for any purchases and at ATMs as normal.

Al Kelly, chief executive officer at Visa, says: "Our goal is to ensure all Visa payments work reliably 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

"We fell well short of this goal today and we apologise to all of our partners and Visa account holders for any inconvenience this may have caused."

There were widespread reports of issues from Irish banks and businesses on Friday evening.

This included Lidl, Tesco AIB and Bank of Ireland.