SINGAPORE - The 6½-hour disruption to DBS services on May 5 was caused by human error, and unrelated to an earlier 10-hour outage in March 2023.
Senior Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam gave this update on Wednesday in a written answer to a parliamentary question by Dr Tan Wu Meng (Jurong GRC) on the cause of the disruption, and what is being done to strengthen the reliability and resilience of retail banks with significant market share in Singapore.
The outage on May 5 was DBS’ second disruption in two months, which the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) said was unacceptable.
Mr Tharman, who is chairman of MAS, said that according to the bank’s preliminary investigations, the disruption was due to human error in coding the programme that was used for system maintenance.
“The error led to a significant reduction in system capacity, which in turn affected the system’s ability to process Internet and mobile banking, electronic payment and ATM transactions,” said Mr Tharman.
This intermittently affected customers’ access to these services.
Mr Tharman added that the earlier disruption in March 2023 was caused by inherent software bugs.
He also noted that following the March 2023 incident, DBS had convened a special board committee to oversee the investigation into the root cause and a comprehensive review of the bank’s IT resilience. MAS also required the special board committee to extend its review to cover the latest incident and to use qualified independent third parties for the review.
More details on the disruptions will be provided by the bank publicly when the review is completed, he said.
A day after the May 5 disruption, MAS ordered an additional capital requirement on the bank.
DBS Bank will now need to apply a multiplier of 1.8 times to its risk-weighted assets for operational risk, up from the 1.5 times multiplier previously applied in 2022, after it suffered its worst outage in more than a decade in November 2021.
This means that the additional regulatory capital it must set aside now stands at about $1.6 billion, to buffer for unexpected losses and keep itself solvent in times of crisis.
Mr Tharman said the imposition of capital requirements on DBS reflects the seriousness with which MAS views the recent disruptions and the impact that they have had on customers. MAS may vary the size of the additional capital requirement imposed on the bank and take other regulatory actions depending on the outcome of ongoing reviews.
“MAS requires all retail banks in Singapore to ensure that their mission-critical systems supporting digital banking are resilient. This includes having the ability to recover quickly from any system disruptions,” he said, adding that banks are subject to regular inspections and off-site reviews by MAS to ensure their adherence to regulatory requirements and expectations.
