Widespread Outage Hits Israel's Popular 'Bit' Payment App
Translated & summarized from Ice by baba
Israel's popular 'Bit' mobile payment app, operated by Bank Hapoalim, experienced a widespread outage on Tuesday, preventing millions of users from making transactions. The bank confirmed the issue and is working to resolve it, apologizing for the disruption.
The story in 5 lines · by baba
- The 'Bit' payment app suffered a major outage, blocking user access.
- Bank Hapoalim confirmed the malfunction and is working on a fix.
- Millions of Israelis rely on the app for digital money transfers.
- This is the second significant outage for the app this year.
- Bit is a key asset for Bank Hapoalim, with 3.5 million users.
A significant technical malfunction has disrupted the 'Bit' (PayBox) mobile payment application, preventing millions of Israeli users from accessing the service to send or receive money. Users attempting to log in are met with an error message stating, "Information could not be loaded, try again," rendering the app inoperable.
Bank Hapoalim, the app's operator, confirmed the issue, stating, "We are currently identifying a malfunction affecting the operation of the Bit application. The matter is being handled, and teams are working to resolve it as soon as possible. We apologize for the inconvenience." A similar outage occurred in June, causing a service interruption lasting over two hours.
The widespread impact stems from Bit's dominant market share in digital money transfers in Israel, despite increasing competition from Bank Discount's Paybox app. According to Bank Hapoalim data, two-thirds of Bit's active users manage their primary accounts at banks other than Bank Hapoalim.
Despite these recurring technical problems, Bit remains a key strategic asset for Bank Hapoalim, serving approximately 3.5 million active users. The app facilitates an average monthly transaction volume of around 2.45 billion shekels (approximately 29.4 billion shekels annually). This strong performance was highlighted alongside Bank Hapoalim's record 2025 financial results, which reported a net profit of 9.8 billion shekels. Since November 2025, Bit has expanded its services beyond money transfers to include deposit options, evolving into a broader banking services platform.
