DBS unaffected by banking glitch believe brand and PR experts

A fault in DBS' banking system caused a breakdown to its online banking services thus leading to public confusion as thousands could not access its systems and draw money from DBS and POSBank ATMs yesterday.

For most part of the morning, the bank's internet and mobile banking services were also disrupted which in turned affected NETs and credit card transactions.

Services were then gradually restored by lunchtime, after it had received numerous consumer complaints and unleashed a media storm.

David Gledhill, MD and head of group technology and operations at DBS, explained in a statement: "The bank has multiple levels of redundancy to protect against such occurrences and this is the first time a problem of this nature has occurred."

The statement continued: "We are now conducting a full scale investigation with our main vendor IBM. We deeply regret the inconvenience caused and once again would like to assure our customers that DBS is continually reviewing and revising its resilience and redundancy plans in line with developments and advancements in technology."

Branding and PR experts believe that the bank acted promptly and feel that the bank need not initiate any advertising or PR campaigns to repair or restore its image.

Martin Roll, brand strategist of VentureRepublic, thinks that DBS' current predicament is likely just "a storm in the teacup".

He says: "What happened was unsatisfactory but technology is by no means perfect. Deep down, I don't think the bank's brand equity will be affected. They followed the rules of engagement, faced their stakeholders and acted very fast. They were up and running again really quickly and that was crucial. I would recommend that they just move on."

Karen Flynn, founder of Siren-Communication says that the bank has done well to put out statements and messages quickly to reassure consumers and should continue to do so.

She adds that an advertising or PR campaign would not be necessary and consumers are more interested to find out what had happened and that the bank's operations are secure.