Pumps on self-serve sites in NZ break on leap day

Leap day or Leap year, depending on where you are placed around the world, comes every 4 years on February 29th and normally there are some knock on effects in business communities as datelines across computer networks are generally completely dependant on the correct data being served at the correct times.

This year, as reported by numerous international outlets, self-serve pumps in New Zealand were unable to accept card payments on February 29th, due to a problem with the gas pumps' payment processing software.

The New Zealand Herald reported that the outage lasted "more than 10 hours." This effectively shuttered some gas stations, while others had to rely on in-store payments. The outage affected suppliers, including Allied Petroleum, BP, Gull, Waitomo, and Z Energy, and has reportedly been fixed.

In-house payment solutions, such as BP fuel cards and the Waitomo app, reportedly still worked during the outage.

As noted by Bloomberg, New Zealand is one of the first countries to experience February 29 quadrennially because of its location. The gas pump breakdown sent stakeholders into a frenzy as they tried to resolve the problem caused by software being unequipped to process the bonus day.

John Scott, the CEO of Invenco Group, the provider of the self-payment terminals that malfunctioned, confirmed to Reuters that a "leap year glitch" caused the problem. Scott said the problem only affected New Zealand code. Invenco is investigating for more information about what caused the glitch.

Scott also told The New Zealand Herald that Invenco worked with Worldline as it rolled out the fix. France-headquartered Worldline makes software for processing card payments. Worldline claimed that all non-Invenco terminals using its technology continued to work during the outage, per Otago Daily Times.

The outage highlights how extensive people's reliance on technology has become and how an error based on something as trivial as a calendar date can upturn entire businesses and disrupt people's day. While some gas stations were still able to accept other forms of payments, those that relied on the broken terminals found themselves missing out on business. RNZ reported speaking to someone who was declined service by four gas stations due to the outage.

As the companies involved work to issue apologies—and, in some cases, discounts—to make up for the inconvenience, there's hope that the scale and embarrassment associated with the outage will help prevent similar events.

Full story at Self-pay gas station pumps break across NZ as software can’t handle Leap Day | Ars Technica