May 2, 2024: From around 5.45 pm to 8 pm, DBS digibank and PayLah! users were unable to login to the banking apps. The bank noted that users could still make payments with its debit or credit cards.

Oct 20, 2023: From around 9.50 am to 11.40 am, DBS PayLah! users faced intermittent access logging into the payment app. The bank noted that users could still make payments with its DBS digibank app, as well as DBS and POSB debit or credit cards.

Oct 14, 2023: DBS and Citibank customers faced issues accessing banking services that were hosted out of an Equinix data centre. During a planned system upgrade, the data centre’s chilled-water system faced a technical issue that led to overheating in some of the data centre’s halls, affecting its tenants’ operations.

DBS’ digital services outage lasted from Saturday afternoon to early Sunday morning, as services such as the bank’s ATMs, mobile apps and websites were progressively brought back online.

On Oct 19, MAS said that it had directed DBS and Citibank to conduct a “thorough investigation” into the outage, and that it would take “appropriate supervisory action” after gathering the necessary facts. It also noted that the banks were unable to fully recover their systems within the required four-hour timeframe.

Sep 26, 2023: DBS customers faced issues making PayNow and Fast and Secure Transfers (Fast) transactions from about 3 pm to 4.30 pm. Some customers had their transactions held in a pending status until Sep 29, when they were either cancelled or confirmed, which led to confusion between merchants and customers.

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On Oct 2, MAS said that it would follow up with DBS to get to the bottom of the incident, as well as its handling of affected customers and transactions.

May 5, 2023: From around noon till 3.10 pm, DBS customers had problems accessing banking and payment services, such as its mobile apps and websites, as well as its ATMs. The DBS PayLah! app initially cited high log-in volumes due to its 5 Million Hawker Meals programme. The programme gives customers rebates of up to S$3 for hawker meal purchases on Fridays.

However, in a second update sent to the media in the evening, a spokesperson said that the disruption was caused by a systems issue unrelated to the outage of Mar 29 incident and its 5 Million Hawker Meals programme.

On the same day, MAS imposed an additional capital requirement on DBS, bringing the total additional regulatory capital requirement on the bank to about S$1.6 billion.

Mar 29, 2023: From around 8.30 am to 5.30 pm, customers logging into the DBS digibank app were met with “Reset pin” prompts; log-in attempts to DBS PayLah! also yielded a “Service unavailable” notice.

At the bank’s annual general meeting, chief executive Piyush Gupta said that while the lender had taken steps, including strengthening its recovery processes, these were “not enough”. Both he and chairman Peter Seah apologised for the disruption, and the bank set up a special board committee to look into the cause of the disruption.

MAS said that the incident was unacceptable, and that it would take “commensurate supervisory actions” against the bank after gathering the facts.

Nov 23, 2021: DBS suffered a two-day outage, during which customers were unable to access the bank’s app and website. It attributed the issue to a problem with its access control servers. Such servers handle both log-in and payment verification through means such as biometrics, authentication tokens and one-time passwords.

In February 2022, MAS ordered the bank to set aside S$930 million more in regulatory capital. It noted that there were deficiencies in DBS’ incident management and recovery procedures in restoring its digital-banking services. This resulted in the “prolonged duration” of the disruption, the bank’s worst one in a decade.