Private-hire driver left with negative $250 in bank balance after duplicate transactions caused by DBS glitch

A private-hire driver was shocked to discover that he was left with a negative $250 bank balance when he logged in to his POSB account on Friday morning (June 18).

The 50-year-old man, surnamed Huang, told Lianhe Wanbao that he was one of those affected by a glitch in DBS' banking service which caused duplicate transactions on some debit and credit cards.

Huang made the discovery after he logged in to his bank account to make his regular monthly donation to local charity, SPD. Once logged in however, he found that he had been charged twice for several previous transactions.

The duplicate charges left him with a negative balance of $250.33, from the slightly over $1,000 that was in the account the last time he checked.

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Huang immediately tried to call DBS but was unable to get through to the customer service hotline. His friends also said that they could not log in to their accounts.

Speaking to Wanbao on Friday, Huang said after reading that the bank was rectifying the glitch, he was not too worried as this was not his main account. However, he noted that it would be a problem for others who have urgent need for the funds in their accounts.

The Chinese evening paper also reported that several customers took to DBS' Facebook account to complain that the PayNow transaction service was also disrupted, causing them not to be able to make or receive payments.

Another customer who was charged twice for the same transaction was housewife Asyura Irfan, reported The Straits Times.

The 37-year-old found that she was charged twice for an $11.70 Grab transaction last week, and her husband too had $29 deducted twice for a Giant supermarket purchase made on Monday. Both had used POSB debit cards.

In the latest update on their Facebook page, DBS stated that the issue has been resolved and that "all duplicate card transactions have been successfully refunded".

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Responding to media queries, Singapore's largest bank DBS said it discovered a payment processing glitch, which resulted in the duplicate transactions on some debit and credit cards. 

Said the spokesman: "The issue has been resolved and we would like to assure all customers that our systems remain safe, secure, and uncompromised. The automatic refund process is now underway and will be completed by this weekend. We apologise for any undue anxiety and inconvenience caused," said the spokesman. 

A message circulating online claiming that POSB digibank online's security has been breached has also been ascertained to be false by DBS.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has instructed DBS to conduct a thorough investigation of the incident.

An MAS spokesperson told The Straits Times: "Supervisory actions will be taken if the bank has fallen short of MAS' expectations.

"MAS takes a serious view of this incident. We expect all financial institutions to put in place processes to ensure the reliability of their IT systems and the effective delivery of financial services to their customers." 

candicecai@asiaone.com