Digital banking services at the SBI took a hit because of what the bank said “a technical glitch” even as users failed to perform UPI transactions and Internet banking with the Yono app not fully functional.
Reports said the outage started in the morning, and is learnt to have lasted for a few hours.
A statement from the country’s largest bank in the evening said the problem has been resolved.
“We regret to inform you that due to a technical glitch, some of our digital services were impacted for a few hours on April 3, 2023.
However, the issue stands resolved, and the digital services are live and restored. We apologise for the inconvenience to our valued customers. The bank is always working toward implementing measures to prevent such occurrences,’’ the lender said.
Down Detector which monitors outages said it received more than 1,800 reports of SBI servers being affected. "User reports indicate SBI is having problems since 9.19 am IST,’’ it tweeted earlier in the day.
“SBI down’’ was one of the trending subjects on Twitter with its customers narrating their difficulties in logging into internet banking or conducting transactions in its Yono app.
One user told this correspondent that while he was able to see his saving account balance on the app, he could not get further details on the amount that has been credited or debited. Other customers complained about their money transfers not going through or having failed.
Some reports said customers had complained about an outage even on Sunday, but this could not be independently confirmed.
Instances of technical glitches are not new to the banking sector. In the past, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has taken action against lenders.
In 2020, the banking regulator asked HDFC Bank to stop issuing credit cards and introducing digital offerings under its ‘‘Digital 2.0’’ programme because of several service outages. All these restrictions were subsequently removed.
Even though banks have seen a rise in their customer base and the magnitude of digital transactions, the latest outage shows their investments in upgrading the infrastructure may be falling short.
