Banking systems go down at South Africa’s Standard Bank
South Africa’s Standard Bank has joined the global trend for downtime and seen its banking systems affected by unspecified “technical difficulties”.
At 8.04 am (UK time) today (28 February), the bank reported problems with its self-service channels.
Predictably, there was negative feedback on Twitter. This one sums up the mood:
“This is so frustrating #standardbank. I can’t deal. In fact there’s 2 things frustrating me. 1. I frustrate myself by banking with you. 2. Your systems are frustrating. Something needs to change. I need to decide how not to frustrate myself.”
At 10.59 am (UK time), the bank provided an update: “We can confirm that you can once again transact at our ATMs and branches as well as make payments for purchases at merchants and retailers, using your card. We will notify you as soon as full services have been re-established.”
At 2.14 pm (UK time), there was another update: “Our teams are still working tirelessly to ensure all systems are fully restored. However please note that all our branches will be kept open tonight until the very last customer is served.”
There are no indications as to what has caused the problems.
In years gone by
As reported in 2016, Standard Bank was upping its game in information technology (IT) expenditure.
Standard Bank spent nearly ZAR 14 billion ($1 billion). One of its launches saw its existing banking app introduced to four additional African markets – Uganda, Namibia, Ghana and Botswana. And it had plans to roll it out to Nigeria, Kenya, Zambia and Zimbabwe by the end of 2016.
At that time, it was also implementing SAP’s core banking system in its home market – which had been going on for a number of years (a difficult and costly project) – and Infosys Finacle across the rest of Africa since 2013. Standard Bank’s plan was to spend up to ZAR 21.5 billion ($1.5 billion) on these projects between 2012 and 2017.
