MAS Instructs DBS To Conduct Through Investigation Into Service Disruption
The 12-hour disruption to DBS’ digital services on Wednesday (29 Mar) inconvenienced many users in Singapore.
DBS Digital Services Currently Down, Bank Assures Customers Systems Remain Secure
As services resumed later that evening, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) issued a statement addressing the disruption, calling it “unacceptable”.
This is especially since the latest disruption comes just slightly more than a year after a similar incident in Nov 2021.
MAS deems DBS service disruption on 29 Mar ‘unacceptable’
On Wednesday (29 Mar) night, the Singapore central bank issued a statement addressing the disruption to DBS’ digital services earlier that day.
Describing the disruption as “unacceptable”, MAS said DBS had “fallen short” of the its expectations of maintaining high system availability and ensuring the swift recovery of IT systems.
The central bank also referenced a widespread disruption that plagued DBS back in Nov 2021. During that incident, services were down for three consecutive days.
MAS has since ordered DBS to carry out a thorough investigation to identify the root cause of the incident and submit findings to the central bank. The authority will impose supervisory actions after gathering the necessary facts.
MAS had reportedly been in close contact with DBS to ensure the speedy recovery of its services following the disruption.
DBS digital services down for several hours on 29 Mar
Earlier that day, DBS’ digital services were first reported to be unavailable at around 10.20am.
Source: DBS on Facebook
As it rectified the matter, the bank provided regular updates on Facebook. Unfortunately, services remained unavailable over six hours later, as of the update at 4.50pm.
DBS even resorted to extending its banking services by two hours to facilitate in-person transactions.
It wasn’t until nine hours after the first announcement that DBS confirmed that digital services had returned to normal.
Back in 2022, MAS imposed a S$930 million capital requirement on DBS for its days-long service disruption in 2021.
The regulatory body apparently found deficiencies in the bank’s recovery procedures which caused the lengthy outage.
Have news you must share? Get in touch with us via email at news@mustsharenews.com.
Featured image adapted from Google Maps and TheSmartLocal.
