SINGAPORE: The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) said on Tuesday (Apr 30) that it will not extend the six-month pause on non-essential activities that it imposed on DBS after the bank's multiple service disruptions in 2023.
"The six-month pause on DBS Bank’s non-essential activities was to ensure that the bank kept a sharp focus on restoring the resilience of its digital banking services," said MAS.
During the pause from Nov 1, 2023 to Apr 30, 2024, DBS was not allowed to acquire new business ventures or make any non-essential IT changes.
MAS said in November last year that the bank, Singapore's largest lender, would also not be allowed to reduce the size of its branch and automated teller machine (ATM) networks in Singapore.
On Tuesday, the authority noted that DBS has made "substantive progress" to address the shortcomings identified from the service disruptions last year, even while full implementation of its remediation plan is ongoing.
Improvements have been made to its technology risk governance, system resilience, change management and incident management, said MAS.
"The remediation by DBS will continue with some longer-term measures still being worked on, such as the continued simplification and strengthening of the bank’s systems architecture," added the regulator.
"DBS has committed to prioritise resources and dedicate management attention to complete the outstanding remediation measures."
MAS said it would closely monitor the bank's progress and the effectiveness of the measures.
"In the event of service disruptions, MAS expects DBS to promptly recover its services and communicate to its customers in a clear and timely manner," it said.
In a statement, MAS said that it will retain the multiplier of 1.8 times to DBS' risk-weighted assets for operational risk until the bank "has demonstrated the ability to maintain service availability and reliability, and handle any disruptions effectively".
The multiplier of 1.8 times was imposed in May last year, up from the 1.5 times that was implemented in February 2022.
DBS said on Tuesday that being able to resume its activities "will not dilute its focus on strengthening technology resiliency and enhancing digital service availability".
The six-month pause has enabled the bank to "further prioritise attention and resources on addressing gaps in technology resiliency", it said, adding that several areas are still being worked on.
"They include continued simplification and strengthening of the bank’s systems architecture; building deeper expertise in centres of excellence for critical third-party technologies; broadening the use of artificial intelligence to further strengthen change management; and creating more monitoring tools so as to be able to detect potential issues more quickly," DBS said in a statement.
DBS CEO Piyush Gupta said: “The pause has allowed us to reflect on the areas we needed to improve on and to better address them. While progress has been made, we are committed to building on this further.
"In the months ahead, we will continue to prioritise resources to strengthening technology resiliency. We will also dedicate management attention to ensuring that our efforts have sustained effectiveness.
"Our pledge is to ensure that innovation is well balanced with resiliency so as to meet our customers’ expectations for reliable, seamless and effortless banking."
A technical issue with the cooling system at a data centre caused an hours-long outage of DBS and Citibank's banking and payment services on Oct 14, 2023.
DBS ATMs were also affected, prompting the bank to reopen branches on a Saturday afternoon to assist customers.
MAS ordered DBS and Citibank to conduct "a thorough investigation", noting that the banks were not able to fully recover their systems within the required timeframe.
Any unscheduled downtime for a critical service affecting a bank's operations or service to customers must not exceed four hours within any 12-month period.
The Oct 14 outage was among several DBS service disruptions in 2023.
In March last year, a day-long service outage hit online banking and payment platforms such as PayLah!, prompting MAS to issue a strongly worded statement saying the bank had "fallen short" of expectations due to the "unacceptable" disruption.
Following that incident, MAS directed DBS to engage an independent third party to conduct a comprehensive review of the effectiveness and adequacy of the people, processes and technology supporting its digital banking services.
In May 2023, digital banking services and ATMs were down due to "human error in coding the programme that was used for system maintenance".
Mr Gupta's pay dropped 27.3 per cent to S$11.2 million (US$8.2 million) in 2023, following a cut in his variable pay.
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"The six-month pause on DBS Bank’s non-essential activities was to ensure that the bank kept a sharp focus on restoring the resilience of its digital banking services," said MAS.
During the pause from Nov 1, 2023 to Apr 30, 2024, DBS was not allowed to acquire new business ventures or make any non-essential IT changes.
MAS said in November last year that the bank, Singapore's largest lender, would also not be allowed to reduce the size of its branch and automated teller machine (ATM) networks in Singapore.
On Tuesday, the authority noted that DBS has made "substantive progress" to address the shortcomings identified from the service disruptions last year, even while full implementation of its remediation plan is ongoing.
Improvements have been made to its technology risk governance, system resilience, change management and incident management, said MAS.
"The remediation by DBS will continue with some longer-term measures still being worked on, such as the continued simplification and strengthening of the bank’s systems architecture," added the regulator.
"DBS has committed to prioritise resources and dedicate management attention to complete the outstanding remediation measures."
MAS said it would closely monitor the bank's progress and the effectiveness of the measures.
"In the event of service disruptions, MAS expects DBS to promptly recover its services and communicate to its customers in a clear and timely manner," it said.
In a statement, MAS said that it will retain the multiplier of 1.8 times to DBS' risk-weighted assets for operational risk until the bank "has demonstrated the ability to maintain service availability and reliability, and handle any disruptions effectively".
The multiplier of 1.8 times was imposed in May last year, up from the 1.5 times that was implemented in February 2022.
DBS said on Tuesday that being able to resume its activities "will not dilute its focus on strengthening technology resiliency and enhancing digital service availability".
The six-month pause has enabled the bank to "further prioritise attention and resources on addressing gaps in technology resiliency", it said, adding that several areas are still being worked on.
"They include continued simplification and strengthening of the bank’s systems architecture; building deeper expertise in centres of excellence for critical third-party technologies; broadening the use of artificial intelligence to further strengthen change management; and creating more monitoring tools so as to be able to detect potential issues more quickly," DBS said in a statement.
DBS CEO Piyush Gupta said: “The pause has allowed us to reflect on the areas we needed to improve on and to better address them. While progress has been made, we are committed to building on this further.
"In the months ahead, we will continue to prioritise resources to strengthening technology resiliency. We will also dedicate management attention to ensuring that our efforts have sustained effectiveness.
"Our pledge is to ensure that innovation is well balanced with resiliency so as to meet our customers’ expectations for reliable, seamless and effortless banking."
Related:
2023 SERVICE OUTAGES
A technical issue with the cooling system at a data centre caused an hours-long outage of DBS and Citibank's banking and payment services on Oct 14, 2023.
DBS ATMs were also affected, prompting the bank to reopen branches on a Saturday afternoon to assist customers.
MAS ordered DBS and Citibank to conduct "a thorough investigation", noting that the banks were not able to fully recover their systems within the required timeframe.
Any unscheduled downtime for a critical service affecting a bank's operations or service to customers must not exceed four hours within any 12-month period.
The Oct 14 outage was among several DBS service disruptions in 2023.
In March last year, a day-long service outage hit online banking and payment platforms such as PayLah!, prompting MAS to issue a strongly worded statement saying the bank had "fallen short" of expectations due to the "unacceptable" disruption.
Following that incident, MAS directed DBS to engage an independent third party to conduct a comprehensive review of the effectiveness and adequacy of the people, processes and technology supporting its digital banking services.
In May 2023, digital banking services and ATMs were down due to "human error in coding the programme that was used for system maintenance".
Mr Gupta's pay dropped 27.3 per cent to S$11.2 million (US$8.2 million) in 2023, following a cut in his variable pay.
Related:
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