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OCBC service disruption pinned on software failure and human oversight

OCBC Bank has identified the root cause of the service disruption of its banking channels on 1 September 2018, which occurred intermittently from 8.45 pm and worsened at 8.53 pm when all banking channels went down.

A statement to Human Resources by OCBC Bank’s group CEO, Samuel Tsien, pins it down to software failure, explaining: "A software failure in the backup unit for the core banking system resulted in the customer transaction data not being successfully transferred.

"This caused the storage in the core banking system to reach its maximum capacity and to stop accepting new transaction data." He added that the software failure signal was not detected for rectification due to a human oversight.

"As a result, the core banking system was not able to function properly, which affected our ATM network, online banking channels, NETS and card services," the statement reads.

Group CEO Tsien has since called the incident "totally unacceptable" and has put in place measures to present any future recurrences.

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Tsien adds in the statement: "The service disruption was totally unacceptable. I am grateful for the patience and understanding of our customers and I would like to sincerely apologise to all our customers again for the inconvenience that this incident has caused them.

"We have also put in place measures to prevent any future recurrence."

Throughout this incident, all customer and transaction data was protected, and banking services resumed progressively from 11.32 pm and all services were restored by 12.30 am.

Photo / StockUnlimited

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