‘Human error’ reason for DBS digital banking glitch in May

The incident caused disturbances in mobile, electronic and ATM transactions.

DBS Bank has named "human error" in coding as the cause of tech disruptions in May.

This error resulted in a notable decrease in system capacity, impacting the processing of internet and mobile banking, electronic payment, and ATM transactions. 

“According to DBS, the cause of the incident was unrelated to the earlier March 2023 disruption, which was caused by inherent software bug,” Senior Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam said in a parliamentary written reply.

DBS Bank experienced a disruption in its digital banking services on 5 May, resulting in intermittent access issues for customers using internet and mobile banking, electronic payment, and ATM services. 

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DBS successfully restored the affected services within 6.5 hours. 

The MAS publicly expressed its dissatisfaction with this second disruption occurring within a two-month period, stating that DBS had not met MAS' expectations regarding the delivery of reliable services to customers.

“MAS requires all retail banks in Singapore to ensure that their mission critical systems supporting digital banking are resilient. This includes having the ability to recover quickly from any system disruptions.” Shanmugaratnam added.