OCBC says software failure caused bank's service outage on Saturday

OCBC Bank said on Tuesday night that a software failure in the backup unit for its core banking system was behind Saturday's service outage.

The bank suffered a service outage for almost three hours on Saturday night, inconveniencing users who were unable to use OCBC's automated teller machines (ATMs), online banking channels, Nets and card services.

Group chief executive Samuel Tsien said in a statement on Tuesday: "We have identified the root cause of the service disruption of our banking channels on 1 September 2018. The disruption occurred intermittently from 8.45 pm and worsened at 8.53 pm when all banking channels went down.

"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. The software failure signal was unfortunately 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.

"As we restarted the system to restore the services, we made sure that all customer and transaction data was protected. Banking services resumed progressively from 11.32 pm and all services were restored by 12.30 am."

Measures have been taken to prevent any future recurrence, Mr Tsien added.

He said: "The service disruption was totally unacceptable. I am grateful for the patience and understanding of our customers."