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'Power pack' to blame for Standard Bank issues

Paula Gilbert
By Paula Gilbert, ITWeb telecoms editor.
Johannesburg, 04 Aug 2015
Standard Bank blames a "power pack failure" for yesterday's systems failure.
Standard Bank blames a "power pack failure" for yesterday's systems failure.

Standard Bank says a hardware problem was the reason for extended disruption to its services yesterday.

Customers were unable to transact using Internet banking, the Standard Bank app, call centres and branches for the majority of yesterday. The only services that were working were ATMs and point of sale devices.

Standard Bank spokesperson Ross Linstrom says the problem was due to the failure of a power pack on one of its application data controllers.

"The unfortunate thing was that that component was due to be replaced and upgraded over the weekend," according to Linstrom.

He says the backup servers reacted as expected; however, due to "the sudden nature of the fault, the impacted controller went into data lockdown, preventing a switch to the backup platform".

Services were only restored well after the close of business yesterday but the bank says all platforms are now back up and running.

"Data is an integral part of the way in which we conduct our business, and securing and protecting this data is our number one priority. While the incident is extremely unfortunate, our highest volume channels were available to our customers throughout the day," adds Linstrom.

"Standard Bank takes this matter very seriously as it is important that our customers are able to access all of our services seamlessly and without fail 24/7," says Funeka Montjane, Standard Bank's chief executive for personal and business banking in SA.

To make up for time lost by those who were unable to transact yesterday, the bank says it will extend the operating hours of its branches until 5pm over the next few days.

Montjane apologised to customers for the inconvenience caused and says the bank will continue to monitor the system closely today.

According to downdetector.co.za, this is the fourth technical issue reported by the bank this year and the third since June.

The technology failure detection site shows First National Bank has also had four technical issues this year that have affected customers, while Absa has reported three.

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