Outsource Magazine

DBS Group Holdings Ltd, the largest bank by asset value in Southeast Asia, has been censured by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) after widescale disruption to systems including the bank’s ATM network resulted in outages lasting up to seven hours on July 5th. The MAS lambasted the bank for “shortcomings and inadequate management oversight by the bank of its outsourced IT systems,” saying that the outages were evidence of “weaknesses in DBS Bank's technology and operational risk management controls."

The MAS action comes after an investigation into the July 5th outages by DBS and IBM – which delivers support services for the bank’s ATM system – in coordination with MAS itself. In a joint statement IBM and DBS blamed the outages on “incorrect procedures” when repairing a technical problem; IBM has said that it has “taken steps to enhance training of [its] personnel related to current procedures and brought in experts from [its] global team to provide further assistance.” Local press reports on Wednesday claimed that IBM personnel involved in the incident have been disciplined.

"MAS takes a serious view of this incident… We expect all financial institutions to put in place a robust technology risk management framework that will ensure the reliability, resiliency and speedy recoverability of the institution's IT systems and infrastructure, whether outsourced or in-house,” said MAS’ deputy MD for financial supervision, Teo Swee Lian.