SINGAPORE - A number of customers of DBS Bank faced difficulties in accessing its business banking portal DBS Ideal for more than a day, with some taking to Facebook to complain about the disruptions.
The problem was confirmed by a DBS spokesman, who said in a statement on Tuesday afternoon (Nov 24): "On Monday, DBS detected that a small number of our corporate customers were facing intermittent delays when accessing Ideal."
The system was rectified as at 3.30pm on Tuesday, with tech teams having been "working around the clock to resolve this", said DBS, which apologised for the inconvenience caused.
Some frustrated customers posted their complaints on the DBS Facebook page from Monday morning. In its reply in the comments section, the bank apologised and stated that it was working on a solution.
Mr Jeremy Pao, who has used DBS Ideal for seven years, said this is the first time that technical issues from the platform have incurred costs for his company - around $50 in late payment fees.
"Yesterday, a lot of our subcontractors were unable to receive their payouts for contracted work due to this issue. We were also unable to remit payment for vehicle instalments and rental," added the 46-year-old transportation business owner.
While Mr Pao could access the service at around 1.30pm on Tuesday, he faced glitches about 10 minutes later.
Mr Charis Fu, who has been using the portal since December 2019, attempted to log in to the system on nine occasions to access bank statements for a client.
"I have been trying to access the system yesterday and today but there appears to be a delay error," the 34-year-old accountant said on early Tuesday afternoon.
A finance manager in a company of around 10 people, who wanted to be known only as Ms Cheong, said that she had tried to access the system hourly since Monday morning while being "chased by overseas vendors".
Some customers suggested that DBS could have notified them via e-mail about the status of the situation or through social media to help manage expectations.
"We need to know an estimated timeline on when things can be resolved so that we can advise our customers and staff... Two days' down time for business banking is too long," said Mr Pao.
DBS said customers who need further assistance can contact the bank on 1800-222-2200, or e-mail businesscaresg@dbs.com or their relationship managers.
