Technical issue heated up data centre, disrupted DBS & Citibank's banking services

The data centre provider is looking into the issue.

Zhangxin Zheng | Ruth Chai | October 15, 2023, 01:13 PM

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Customers of DBS Bank and Citibank faced difficulties accessing their banking and payment services on Oct. 14.

According to a spokesperson from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), the banks informed the agency about the service disruptions in the afternoon.

Preliminary investigations indicate that the service disruptions were caused by an issue at a common data centre that is used by both banks, the MAS spokesperson said.

The spokesperson also added that MAS has been following up closely with the banks, as they worked towards a full resumption of their services and provide timely communications and support to affected customers.

Equinix's statement

The data centre in question is Equinix.

Responding to Mothership's queries, Equinix said that a technical issue occurred at one of its data centres in Singapore.

It caused the temperature in the data centre to rise and impacted some customers' operations.

The technical issue has been resolved and Equinix is in contact with impacted customers.

"At Equinix, delivering stable and reliable services to our customers is our number one priority. We are conducting a thorough investigation into this event to identify ways we can better meet our customers' needs. We will further communicate with our customers as more detail becomes available."

Updates from DBS/POSB and Citibank

Both banks' services were resumed by the morning of Oct. 15.

POSB said that Equinix would be conducting a thorough investigation.

Citibank posted an update on the morning of Oct. 15.
Banks were not the only ones that were temporarily disrupted.

WhatsApp and Facebook were among service providers that faced issues as they share the same data centre provider.

Top image credit: Screenshot from Down Detector and photo from MAS website