DBS Banking Services Outage on 5 May; 2nd Disruption in Less Than 2 Months

A couple of things bring Singaporeans together—good food, complaining about everything, sales and discounts…

Yet, there’s one thing that probably was the last subject anyone expected to be able to unite Singaporeans: banking service outages.

DBS’s banking services were disrupted again for the second time in less than two months. And you already know it will be a talking point during the next meetup with your kakis.

DBS Banking Services Disrupted (Again) Around Noon on 5 May

On Friday (5 May), DBS customers found themselves in a familiar predicament—online banking and payment services provided by DBS were disrupted again. This time, it started around noon.

An early TGIF celebration for DBS staff, perhaps?

This included disruptions to the PayLah! mobile wallet. Imagine all the “Sorry auntie, my PayLah! not working” apologies that had to be made over Friday’s lunch hour.

Even then, DBS customers couldn’t withdraw cash from ATMs or use Paywave that afternoon as those services were also disrupted.

If you were a DBS customer who couldn’t pay for your lunch thanks to the disruption, look on the bright side! You can finally start working on that diet you’ve been wanting to go on for years.

Banking services on the DBS/POSB digital banking and DBS Vickers mTrading platforms were also down.

Well, there is a silver lining. If you were contemplating whether to check out your cart on SHEIN for more clothes you don’t need, DBS users could not do that on Friday afternoon. You have DBS to thank for the money saved.

Well, that’s one way to become the World’s Best Bank.

Banking Service Outage Caused By High Login Volumes, According to DBS

In response to a comment on DBS’s Facebook post regarding renovation loans, the bank shared that the outages were caused by “a higher volume traffic”.

This was followed by a string of “corporate-speak” statements that we’re all too familiar with. Urging customers to be patient, stating that the relevant teams will rectify the issue, followed by a tokenistic “thank you”.

Instead of dabbling in banking services, perhaps DBS could start a side business writing an “Apologies For Dummies” instructional book.

Digital Systems Fixed Within 45 Minutes; All ATMs Up and Running Again After More Than 2 Hours

Fortunately, users of the bank’s digital services managed to get PayLah! and other DBS digital systems up and running within the hour.

According to a Facebook post addressing the outages, by 1:30 pm the same day, most digital systems returned to normal and most ATMs were up and running again.

By 3:10 pm, after over two hours since the outages, the bank shared that all ATMs were working again.

Well, at least it wasn’t a two-day-long disruption like the one that happened two years back.

Sorry, we should clarify which one, in light of the number of banking services outages. We’re talking about the one in November 2021.

“Please be assured that our systems are uncompromised, and your monies and deposits remain safe,” the bank added.

I suppose that’s one thing that DBS does better than OCBC.

2nd Disruption to DBS Banking Services in Less Than Two Months

Unless you were living under a rock or are a non-DBS customer (good for you if you belong to the latter group), you would know that this isn’t DBS’s first outage this year.

Earlier this year, DBS customers found themselves apologising to their local drinks store uncles again after DBS’s digital services went down around 7 am on 29 March.

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However, unlike the outage that just happened, this outage took much longer to fix. DBS’s systems only returned to normal more than ten hours after the outage.

Following the disruption in March, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) said in a statement that the outage was “unacceptable”,  adding that MAS will take the appropriate actions against DBS.

In light of this second outage in less than two months, the bank probably won’t be shaking MAS (and Singaporeans) off its tail anytime soon.

When DBS said “Live more, Bank less”, I suppose they meant “Bank less” quite literally.