The Monetary Authority of Singapore has ordered DBS to set aside nearly $700 million of additional regulatory capital in response to the serious failure of its digital banking services last year.
DBS has been ordered to apply a multiplier of 1.5 times to its risk-weighted assets for operational risk, according to a MAS statement, equivalent to about S$930 million ($692 million) in additional regulatory capital. The MAS underlined deficiencies in DBS’ incident management and recovery procedures while restoring digital banking services.
The regulator also ordered DBS to appoint an independent expert to conduct a comprehensive review of the incident and assess how similar incidents can be prevented in the future.
«Prolonged Duration».
The new orders by the MAS are a response to the 2-day disruption of online services in November last year – the worst for DBS in a decade – which left many unable to access their digital banking accounts for a «prolonged duration» due to insufficient response.
DBS notes that this was caused by a problem with accessing control servers and that there was no cyberattack. «In a digital era, customers rightly expect to have seamless and uninterrupted access to online banking services 24/7. This is something we take seriously,» said DBS chief executive Piyush Gupta.
«Since the November incident, DBS has taken a series of actions to improve the resilience of our services and incident response. These actions are but a starting point. Over the course of the next few months, together with an independent expert, we will continue to review our systems and processes to ensure that we do better going forward.»
