MAS responds to recurring bank outages with new safeguards and regulatory pressure

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), in collaboration with NETS Group, has announced plans to introduce stand-in capabilities for NETS point-of-sale (POS) terminals. This initiative aims to enable consumers to continue making contactless payments at retail outlets even during bank outages, serving as a direct response to the numerous disruptions experienced by DBS in recent years that have severely impacted consumers’ access to digital banking services and payment channels.

DBS’s technical challenges first gained prominence in November 2021, when an issue with its access control servers led to a prolonged two-day outage, preventing customers from accessing their accounts via mobile and online banking. Since then, DBS has faced at least nine major disruptions affecting a broad spectrum of its digital banking services, electronic payments, and ATMs. The scale of impact has been considerable; for instance, a single outage in October 2023, reportedly prevented 2.5 million payment and ATM transactions and led to 810,000 failed login attempts. With two outages already occurring in 2025, these incidents have further underscored the urgency for MAS’s new announcement, aiming to maintain public trust in digital payment services that have become increasingly integral to daily life.

To curb the number and severity of such outages, MAS has taken increasingly stringent actions, applying significant regulatory pressure on DBS. This includes imposing substantial penalties, such as additional capital requirements totaling approximately SGD 1.6 billion on DBS, and a six-month pause on DBS’s non-essential IT changes, imposed in November 2023. These were clear measures designed to force the bank to prioritize IT resilience and to signal direct accountability. The regulatory pressure has undeniably compelled DBS to elevate IT resilience to the top of its agenda, with the bank committing a significant investment, including an SGD 80 million special budget, and undertaking substantial organizational restructuring in 2023. However, the recurrence of outages, even after these stringent measures were put into place or shortly after they were lifted (such as in May 2024 and early 2025), indicates that the systematic problems are deeply embedded and likely require a multi-year effort for resolution.

MAS’s most recent annual report, published in July 2025, explicitly highlights the urgency and importance of IT resilience as a top agenda item for the regulator. In addition to the implementation of stand-in capabilities for NETS POS systems (with similar plans for QR payments), the report and related speeches emphasize a broader commitment to enhancing digital resilience and security across the financial sector. This includes strengthening AI governance and oversight of AI models in financial services, improving GenAI cyber risk education within financial institutions, and proactively safeguarding against quantum cyber threats. These efforts underscore MAS’s determination to maintain the stability and trustworthiness of Singapore’s financial ecosystem amidst evolving technological challenges.