CNA – SINGAPORE: DBS suffered an outage in its digital services on Wednesday (Mar 29), with customers being unable to log in to online platforms such as the bank’s PayLah! app.
Reports of service outages began surging at about 8.30am, according to the website Downdetector, with more than 300 reports made.
CNA was unable to access the DBS PayLah! app as well as the bank’s digibank online and mobile services at about 9am. One-time passwords (OTPs) were also not received on mobile phones.
DBS acknowledged in a Facebook post at 9.20am that digital services are down, adding that it is resolving the issue and will give an update as soon as services are recovered.
“Please be assured that our systems remain secure and uncompromised,” the bank said, apologising for the inconvenience caused.
In the meantime, customers can continue to use their DBS or POSB cards for transactions, the bank said.
In another update on Facebook at about 12.50pm, DBS said access to its digital services – the bank’s digibank online and mobile services, DBS Vickers mTrading and DBS PayLah! – is intermittent and customers may experience “some slowness” during login.
The bank also assured customers that their deposits and money are safe and secure.
DBS customers took to the bank’s Facebook post to voice frustrations that they could not access the app. Some users said they needed to use the app urgently.
“Please restore it ASAP,” said Facebook user Karen Boo. “How would you feel if you are the customer who needs to use the service urgently? This is so frustrating!” she said.
Another user William Tan said: “The last time your system had a major breakdown which caused a lot of problems and inconvenience for users.”
Others also said that they did not receive OTPs. One user said that they thought they “got hacked” until they read the comments online.
In reply to a Facebook comment from a user who said she needed money to pay her hospital bills, the bank said customers can still use their cards to withdraw money from ATMs.
DBS’ digital banking services previously suffered a two-day disruption in November 2021.
The bank said at the time that its systems “remain secure” and it was not the target of a cyberattack.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) deemed the issue a “serious disruption” and imposed additional capital requirements on DBS.
DBS was required to apply a multiplier of 1.5 times to its risk-weighted assets for operational risk.
That translated to S$930 million in additional regulatory capital, said MAS in February 2022. The sum was based on DBS’ reported financial statements as of Sep 30, 2021.
In comparison, that was four times higher than the amount for a similar disruption that DBS experienced in 2010.
