The Bloomberg terminal, a vital financial data service used globally, experienced an outage on Wednesday, disrupting a UK government debt auction. This service, established in 1981 by US billionaire Michael Bloomberg, serves approximately 350,000 users worldwide and is integral to trading rooms, offering real-time pricing for stocks, currencies, commodities, bonds, and other financial instruments. It also provides news, analytics, and messaging capabilities for traders and investors.

Several Bloomberg terminal functions either ceased to operate or slowed down significantly on Wednesday. According to Bloomberg spokesman Ty Trippet, systems are now returning to normal operations, and terminal functionality has been restored following the earlier service disruption. The company's help desk reported a "technical issue" affecting multiple clients and confirmed that technicians were addressing the problem. The service began to recover around 1000 GMT but operated more slowly.

The UK Debt Management Office extended the bidding window for a government debt auction due to the widespread Bloomberg system issues, eventually closing the window at 1030 GMT. Gregoire Kounowski, an investment adviser at Norman K., described the situation as a "mess" that was hindering business operations. Giles Plump, a copper trader at StoneX, noted that price feeds were intermittent and some functions were not loading, although he characterized these as "not major problems". A trader in Dubai reported that the terminal was "down" and only briefly functioning.