Thursday, December 1, 2022 - Taiwan's Cathay United Bank given stern warning after another service outage

Cathay United Bank / 國泰世華銀行
Source - https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4737706
Where - Taiwan
Business line - Retail Banking
Copyright © Taiwan News (www.taiwannews.com.tw) 2022

Executives of the Cathay United Bank have been summoned by the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) after yet another system service interruption on Thursday (Dec. 1).

Liberty Times reported that the bank’s online and mobile banking services encountered an error on Thursday morning that caused delays during customer logins. The services went down at 9:30 a.m., the online banking service was restored at 2:35 p.m., and the mobile banking service was restored at 4:20 p.m.

While the bank did comply with the Legislative Yuan Finance Committee’s request that system or network errors must be reported within 30 minutes, the FSC issued a stern warning as this was the sixth time Cathay United Bank’s service was interrupted due to system errors since October 2021. At the end of November, the bank discovered issues with its system’s programming and began a system upgrade process.

On Oct. 8, access to the bank’s website, mobile app, ATM, and credit card transactions was interrupted due to power system maintenance, which drew complaints from the public. The FSC had already issued a NT$2 million (US$63,000) fine as well as penalties against the bank’s executives.

Liberty Times cited The FSC as saying in response to the latest incident that, considering the same kinds of problems keep repeating at the Cathay United Bank, its board of directors must take the issue seriously and find the root of the problem. He said the recurring system outages reflect issues with the bank’s services’ security and convenience and affect clients’ trust in the bank, urging the board to thoroughly review its bank’s policies, resources, and ethics.

The bank’s executives have been asked to appear before the FSC for questioning on Friday (Dec. 2). It is currently still reviewing the October system outage incident, with penalties still pending.