Unbridled innovation: a rude awakening for Singapore’s banks?

OVER the past few months, something strange and unsettling has unfolded in Singapore. In a nation renowned for its bustling shopping scene and cutting-edge technological prowess, there have been several instances where the simplest of purchases, such as buying a carton of milk, could not be made without resorting to traditional, old-fashioned paper money. This unusual scenario is likely a manifestation of a deeper issue within the country’s banking sector.

One episode of widespread unavailability of digital banking and ATM services in May, not the first, saw the Monetary Authority of Singapore impose an additional capital requirement on DBS – a harsh punishment at the time. Another, more recent, episode saw DBS and Citibank outages in mid-October, apparently due to data centre backup failures, causing significant disruptions that were initially dismissed as anomalies.

These events were soon followed by a string of similar problems at other major banks, including a Nets outage in early November, UOB’s Internet and mobile disruptions, and an OCBC disruption, all happening within the span of just a few weeks. This pattern of failures brings to mind the saying “Once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, three times is a pattern”. Clearly, these do not appear to be mere coincidences but seem to be indicators of a systemic issue.