DBS PayLah! faces Friday morning disruption, less than a week after DBS banking services outage

SINGAPORE: Following a more than 12-hour outage last Saturday (14th Oct), DBS Bank, one of Singapore’s leading financial institutions, reportedly faced another disruption this morning (20th Oct).

A netizen took to the Facebook group “Complaints Singapore” to express frustration about DBS Paylah being down again.

Expressing similar inconvenience, other group members also shared screenshots indicating their inability to access the Paylah service.

Checking Downdetector, a platform that tracks service disruptions, it was found that DBS has experienced a surge in outage complaints since around 7:45 am this morning.

As of 8:45 am, approximately 416 reports were filed by DBS customers on the website.

Around 12:30 pm, some users reported that the app was working again.

DBS says access is ‘intermittent’

At approximately 10 am, DBS made a Facebook post stating that access to PayLah! was “intermittent”.

The bank recommended its customers to utilize DBS digibank Scan and Pay or DBS/POSB debit or credit cards for their transactions.

DBS assured that eligible users who were able to access PayLah! would receive their rebates for the DBS 5 Million Hawker Meals cashback by Friday.

This cashback initiative by DBS, introduced in February to support hawkers, provides a S$3 discount on hawker meals every Friday for the first 100,000 users across the island.

“We are resolving the issue. We apologise for the inconvenience caused and seek your understanding,” DBS said.

In an update at 11:46 am, DBS requested patience from users while assuring that efforts were ongoing to restore full access to PayLah! services. In the meantime, customers were advised to use DBS digibank Scan & Pay or DBS/POSB debit or credit cards for their payments.

The bank confirmed that all 100,000 cashback rewards for the DBS 5 Million Hawker Meals program on Friday had been claimed.

Previously, the bank faced a significant 6½-hour service interruption on 5 May due to human error, and a prolonged 12-hour disruption in March attributed to software bugs.

Singapore’s President, Mr. Tharman Shanmugaratnam, in his former capacity as the Chairman of MAS, had addressed similar system resilience concerns in April and July this year over the past two disruptions experienced by DBS.

He emphasized that DBS had embarked on strategic enhancements to its digital banking system, underscoring the importance of robust access control, system redundancy, comprehensive monitoring, and efficient restoration processes.

However, despite these assurances, the recent incident underscores persistent gaps in the banks’ digital resilience strategies, raising questions about the efficacy of redundancy systems and preventative measures.