Global Biz

Singapore orders biggest bank to beef up IT

(Agencies)
Updated: 2010-08-04 15:05
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SINGAPORE - Singapore ordered DBS Group Holdings Ltd, Southeast Asia's largest bank, to improve its computer systems after its automatic teller machines shutdown for seven hours last month during maintenance by IBM Corp.

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The island's central bank, known as the Monetary Authority of Singapore, said Wednesday that DBS must set aside about 230 million Singapore dollars ($170 million) to cover operating risks and stop relying on a sole provider of information technology services.

Last month, DBS Chief Executive Piyush Gupta apologized to customers for the ATM outage, which occurred from 3:00 am to 10:00 am on July 5.

Gupta said the outage was triggered during routine maintenance by IBM on a disk storage system connected to a mainframe computer.

"DBS Bank did not exercise sufficient oversight of the maintenance, functional and operational practices and controls employed by IBM," the central bank said. "This incident has revealed weaknesses in DBS Bank's technology and operational risk management controls."