Power spike downs FNB SA systems

BUSINESS

In a statement issued by Raj Makanjee, FNB Chief Technology Officer, the bank said: “At 17h00 on 20 March 2012, a severe voltage and current spike (over 11500v and 300A) was experienced by the FNB processing centre. The spike was of such a severe nature that the bank's uninterrupted power supplies were impacted briefly. This caused systems to shut down as further protective measures were implemented.”

The bank's independent power generating capacity was used to restore systems. The bank's IT teams then ensured that all systems were stable and functioning correctly before opening the systems to new transactions.

FNB customers were then able to transact via cards and most ATM's from 18h00 onwards on FNB's back-up system until the main Banking systems were restored during the early evening with functionality returned from 21h30 onwards.

The bank stated that all systems were again checked during the night were confirmed to be operating correctly on 21 March, although some clients were still unable to perform online banking transactions by Thursday.

FNB apologised to customers who were inconvenienced. Batch runs of data (such as debit orders and transfers) were completed normally during the evening and early morning in accordance with inter-bank arrangements.