28-8-2023 (SINGAPORE) OCBC Bank experienced a complete outage of its banking services on Monday due to “network issues,” the bank confirmed on its website. The outage impacted various banking channels, including mobile and online banking, PayNow, ATMs, Velocity, and card transactions.
In a Facebook post around 9.40 am, OCBC acknowledged the technical problems affecting its systems, stating that all banking services were down. The bank apologized for the inconvenience and assured customers that they were working to resolve the issue.
Some customers reported difficulties with credit card payments and cash withdrawals. One customer mentioned that they couldn’t complete payment for an online doctor consultation, while another shared an embarrassing incident when their credit card transactions were declined.
OCBC advised customers that they could still visit its branches for urgent transactions. By 10.33 am, card and branch services were restored, followed by ATM services at 10.37 am.
An OCBC spokesperson confirmed that the banking channels were impacted starting at 8.33 am. The bank also assured customers that no customer data had been compromised and their funds remained secure.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has been contacted for comment.
This incident comes after DBS faced two disruptions in its online banking and payment services in May, with preliminary investigations attributing the cause to human error. In response, MAS imposed an additional capital requirement on DBS, increasing its total additional regulatory capital to approximately S$1.6 billion (US$1.2 billion). This move followed a similar action in February 2022 after DBS experienced a major two-day disruption in November 2021.
