The recent disruption affected 50% of DBS customers, prompting a formal investigation.
SINGAPORE: DBS Bank’s chairman Peter Seah and CEO Piyush Gupta expressed deep regret at the bank’s annual general meeting on Friday (Mar 31) over a major disruption to its digital banking services earlier in the week. The outage, which occurred on Wednesday (Mar 29), left about half of all DBS customers unable to access Digibank or PayLah for approximately 11 hours.
Addressing the incident, CEO Gupta called it a “sobering experience” for Singapore’s largest bank, noting that despite previous steps to strengthen recovery protocols, the outage highlighted areas for improvement. “As a well-known digital and technology bank, this embarrasses us. Ensuring 24/7 digital banking services is our key priority, and we are truly sorry for falling short,” he stated.
DBS Chairman Peter Seah, bowing to shareholders, described the disruption as “very unfortunate and disappointing.” He announced the immediate formation of a special committee to investigate the root cause of the issue. “Our customers have every right to expect more from us,” Seah added.
Following the incident, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) labeled the service disruption as “unacceptable” and has directed DBS to conduct a thorough investigation. Last year, DBS was required to set aside $930 million in regulatory capital after a similar outage, underscoring the critical nature of these investigations.
