This weekend, a technical glitch paralyzed the payment services of several banks. But what is being described as a technical glitch actually reveals a much deeper symbolic crisis.
💳 The bug didn’t just prevent transfers and payments. It affected a fundamental symbol: our relationship with money. In a context of growing mistrust of financial institutions, this failure has reignited conspiracy theories about citizens losing control of their money, the forced digitization of payment methods, and even theories of collapse.
📊 What social media is saying According to a Talkwalker analysis of two of the banks affected, this event generated:
📈 The biggest spike in mentions in 13 months
💬 65,000 mentions over the weekend, almost twice as many as previous peaks
📉 The biggest drop in sentiment in 13 months
😠 60% negative sentiment
The most viral posts did not focus on the technical nature of the bug, but on political and societal interpretations. The conspiracy theory sphere seized on the subject, linking it to the call for cash payments scheduled for September 10.
🧠 Key takeaways
In a world where every technical incident can turn into a symbolic crisis, speed, transparency, and contextualization are the pillars of effective communication.
It is no longer just a matter of fixing the problem, but of reassuring, explaining, and anticipating in order to preserve the contract of trust between the brand and its users.
It may be tempting for the company affected by the outage to remain silent. But staying silent means losing control of the narrative, which can then be exploited by others.
