(25 November 2021 – Singapore) Singapore's banking regulator is set take action against DBS Bank following a prolonged two-day outage that has prevented customers from logging into the bank's digital services.
The disruption, which was first reported on Tuesday morning, spilled over to Thursday as the bank grappled to re-assert control over the malfunctioning access server.
In a video message to customers, DBS Singapore country head Shee Tse Koon says: “We have since been working round the clock, together with our third-party engineering providers, to fix the problem.”
To help ease the situation, DBS has extended banking services at all its branches by two hours and put relationship managers on standby to answer customer calls.
“Yesterday, we identified a problem with our access control servers and this is why many of you have been unable to log in,” says Tse Koon. “We have since been working round the clock, together with our third-party engineering providers, to fix the problem and services were restored at 2am. Unfortunately this morning, the same problem recurred and while the situation is less severe than yesterday, we know that many of you are still unable to get access. We acknowledge the gravity of the situation and as we work to resolve matters, we seek your patience and understanding.”
Under Singaporean banking regulations, financial institutions must ensure that the total unscheduled downtime for critical systems affecting services for customers does not exceed four hours within any 12-month period.
Commenting on the DBS meltdown, Marcus Lim, assistant managing director of bank at the Monetary Authority of Singapore, states: “This is a serious disruption and MAS expects DBS to conduct a thorough investigation to identify the root causes and implement the necessary remedial measures. MAS will consider appropriate supervisory actions following the investigation. MAS expects all financial institutions to have systems and processes to ensure the consistent availability of financial services to their customers.”