OCBC customers face technical issues making online payments, money refunded

OCBC Bank has apologised for "technical issues" with online services causing problems with logging in and fund transfer requests.

Bank customers reported having trouble making online payments on Thursday (June 9). Money was deducted from their accounts, but the intended recipients did not receive the money. Some tried making payments multiple times to no avail.

Transferred money via paynow, deducted on my account but not reflected on receiver account ….. I transferred 9 times to the same person, all showed times out…. But my account money deducted ……
I tried to contact OCBC hotline from 6 pm until 10:10 pm now….
No one answer

— Kristy (@Kristy75636610) June 9, 2022

Stomper Jon commented: "Given the previous incident, now again."

In December, nearly 470 OCBC customers lost a total of at least $8.5 million to spoofed SMS phishing scams. The bank later said all affected customers would receive “full goodwill payouts” covering the amount they lost. Last month, the Monetary Authority of Singapore imposed an additional capital requirement of about $330 million on OCBC for the "deficiencies" in the bank's response to the scams in December.

Stomper CY alerted Stomp to the latest incident on Facebook.

OCBC posted on Thursday (June 9) at 6.47pm: “There were technical issues affecting our online banking services. Customers have encountered problems with logging in and fund transfer requests.

“The services have been restored. We will be contacting affected customers to help and give support.

“We apologise for the inconvenience caused. Thank you for your patience and understanding.”

But people complained that payments still didn't go through.

The bank explained: “Hi, we are sorry for the confusion. Customers have been able to do online banking without problems after the services have been restored since 5.45 pm.

“Customers who encountered problems earlier will definitely have their bank accounts regularised as soon as possible. We are working on these transactions. We will be contacting you to resolve those fund transfer requests by tomorrow. Thank you for your patience.”

It did not help that this happened after recent reports of banking-related scams.

OCBC Bank subsequently updated its Facebook post at 9.50pm, 12.25pm the next day (June 10), 3pm and 11.58pm.

The latest update said: “All transactions that were not successfully processed have been rectified, including the crediting of funds back to affected accounts.”

Customers started reporting they had received refunds in their accounts after 1pm on Friday (June 10).

Some wondered if the bank would compensate customers for the service lapse.

Stomp has contacted OCBC Bank for more information.

Were you affected?