MAS noted that services have since returned to normal with the bank continuing to monitor the situation.
“Today’s disruption of DBS’ digital services is unacceptable,” said MAS, pointing out that this comes after a similar incident in November 2021.
The bank has “fallen short” of MAS’ expectations to maintain “high system availability and ensure its IT systems are recovered expeditiously”, said a spokesperson.
Adding that MAS “takes seriously the reliability of banks’ critical IT systems”, a spokesperson said: “MAS has instructed DBS to conduct a thorough investigation to find out the root cause of the disruption and submit its investigation findings to MAS.”
“MAS will take the commensurate supervisory actions against DBS after gathering the necessary facts.
The 2021 incident saw DBS’ digital banking services disrupted for two days in November that year.
MAS deemed it a “serious” incident and imposed additional capital requirements on DBS, which had to apply a multiplier of 1.5 times to its risk-weighted assets for operational risk.
That translated to S$930 million in additional regulatory capital, based on the bank’s reported financial statements as at September 2021.