DBS Singapore Vows Swift Action After Digital Disruptions, Unveils Resilience Plan

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DBS, a leading bank in Singapore, has recently issued a public apology for the string of digital disruptions it experienced this year. The bank has highlighted its commitment to prioritizing the resolution of these issues, unveiling a comprehensive plan to enhance technology resilience. This plan encompasses both immediate and long-term strategies aimed at bolstering technology governance, leadership, systems, and processes.

DBS has reassured its customers that the completion of this roadmap will lead to a noticeable improvement in service reliability. In cases of any future disruptions, the implemented remediation measures will significantly reduce the recovery time. The bank is also actively working to provide alternative means for customers to fulfill their banking needs should any service or channel become temporarily unavailable. It plans to uphold its physical touchpoints network, including branches, self-service banking machines, and POSB cash points at various merchant outlets.

Peter Seah, the Chairman of DBS, acknowledged the bank’s failure to meet customer expectations and internal standards, expressing the board’s apology for the digital disruptions. The senior management will be held accountable, with their compensation reflecting this accountability.

Following the 29th March incident, a Special Board Committee led by Olivier Lim and comprising Tham Sai Choy, Bonghan Cho, and Chng Kai Fong was established to oversee a comprehensive review of the disruption. The committee enlisted the support of two independent experts, Ajey Gore and Marc Massar, as well as Accenture, to conduct a thorough investigation and provide recommendations.

Accenture’s review, completed in August, identified key gaps and deficiencies in technology risk governance and oversight, incident management, system resilience, and change management. To address these weaknesses, DBS has begun implementing Accenture’s recommendations and additional steps to enhance technology resilience.

The bank has introduced a new sub-committee, the BRMC Technology Risk Committee, to provide dedicated oversight of technology risk. The Technology Risk Management team has been transferred to the Risk Management Group for enhanced independent checks and balances.

To manage the increasing complexity and scale of the technology and operations function, DBS has split the T&O into two separate units. It has also appointed new leadership and created a Quality Assurance function within the Enterprise Architecture Site Reliability Engineering (EASRE) to bolster the bank’s change management process.

The bank has initiated a six-month pause on non-essential IT activities to focus exclusively on improving technology resiliency. Additionally, efforts are underway to fortify system resilience and streamline change management processes, with these structural improvements expected to be completed within 12-24 months.

DBS aims to deliver concrete improvements in service availability and recovery in the coming months and over the long term. It has committed to maintaining service availability targets and reducing downtime for critical systems, along with setting specific service targets for key digital banking services.

Piyush Gupta, the CEO of DBS, expressed regret for the digital disruptions and emphasized the bank’s dedication to delivering seamless and reliable banking services. He announced the allocation of a special budget of SGD 80 million to further enhance system resiliency. The bank reassured customers that these actions would yield tangible improvements in the near term and beyond.