Drone strikes in Gulf knock SadaPay offline as regional conflict hits cloud infrastructure

Rising military tensions in the Middle East have begun to spill over into Pakistan’s financial technology ecosystem, with SadaPay confirming on Tuesday that its mobile application went completely offline due to infrastructure disruptions in the Gulf region.

The fintech disclosed that its systems rely on cloud services hosted by Amazon Web Services in Bahrain, where operations were affected following recent drone strikes earlier this month. According to the company, the situation deteriorated overnight, ultimately triggering a full service outage for users.

In a statement shared on social media, the firm clarified that the disruption was not an internal technical malfunction but rather the result of physical damage to shared digital infrastructure used by multiple financial institutions across the region.

Despite the outage, the company reassured customers that their funds remain fully secure and accurately recorded. It added that core payment channels including debit cards, automated teller machines and point of sale transactions continue to function normally, limiting the operational impact to the mobile application itself.

The incident underscores the growing vulnerability of digital financial services to geopolitical shocks, particularly when critical systems are hosted in overseas data centers located in conflict-prone regions. The broader escalation involving Iran, the United States, and Israel has already resulted in missile exchanges and damage to infrastructure across parts of the Gulf.

The latest disruption also follows a separate technical issue reported by the company days earlier, when some users experienced incorrect deductions and negative balances in their accounts. The fintech acknowledged responsibility for that incident and pledged to restore all affected balances.

While apologising for the inconvenience caused by the current outage, the company said it is working urgently to restore full app functionality as conditions stabilise.