Boost for digital banking

By WICHIT CHAITRONG 
THE NATION

 

Photo from: www.bankinfosecurity.com

 

Banking club issues new guidelines to tackle increasing rush after last week’s breakdown.

 

THE BANKING IT Club yesterday issued guidelines to cope with the rapid growth of digital banking after digital highway congestion caused a major crash in the banking system last week.

 

The club, however, cautioned that it could not offer a 100 per cent guarantee that such an incident would not recur.

 

The club aims to increase the system’s capacity by 2-3 fold during peak hours and to create a framework that can deal with all incidents in order to ensure customer confidence amid continued growth in service usage.

 

The failure of Kasikornbank (KBank)’s core switch at 6.30am on August 31 forced ITMX, a local switching system service provider, to cut KBank’s system from the central system at 6.31 am, resulting in congestion of digital traffic in the systems of three other banks. 

 

Somkid Jiranuntarat, the chairman of Kasikorn Business Technology Group (KBTG) and chairman of the Banking Information Technology Club of the Thai Bankers Association, apologised to affected customers and promised to upgrade the service. 

 

The bank’s customers now prefer using financial services via electronic channels such as mobile phones, the Internet and ATMs of commercial banks, given the seamless connectivity between different banks, he said. 

 

The volume of service usage has increased rapidly and interruption in the service of any bank may affect the overall system, he said. 

 

KBank, however, accelerated the correction of its internal network system and all effects by 11am and resumed the service at 11.05am, he noted.

 

His explanation, however, was at odds with the Bank of Thailand’s statement on August 31 that high volume of transactions had caused the crash.

 

At an event on September 1, Somkid insisted that no errors were seen in KBank’s system as it operated normally. “However, there was a large volume of funds transfer transactions with incorrect account numbers from other banks as some people put their phone numbers instead of their bank account numbers to execute their transactions,” he explained.

 

Detecting unusual activity, ITMX decided to cut KBank’s system from the central system at 10.15am. KBank then switched to a backup system, Processing Centre Company (PCC), immediately, thus allowing its customers to conduct funds transfer transactions to all banks as normal. Some customers who were still linked with PCC at that time could even transfer funds to KBank accounts.

 

However, the customers of several other banks could not transfer money to KBank accounts via ITMX. KBank then collaborated with ITMX to confirm to the general public that KBank’s system could function normally at 4.11pm without any effect on the systems of other banks. ITMX then reconnected the system to allow other banks to resume funds transfer transactions to KBank accounts.

 

“Other banks have also committed to upgrade their IT system. For example, it must instruct customers exactly what they must do and not just convey a ‘system error’ message after they make some mistakes during their transactions,” he added.

 

In order to ensure service continuity, the club and the National ITMX (Interbank Transaction Management and Exchange) Co, Ltd, which is responsible for supervising interbank connectivity, have come up with six guidelines to enhance digital services.

 

The guidelines aim to increase the system strength, unlock bottlenecks and revise the architectural design so that the mobile system can accommodate a volume of service at least two fold the number of peak transactions.

 

It would add control measures for more efficient change management of each bank.

 

The ITMX would fortify the existing system’s capability by at least two fold to support the rapid increase in interbank transactions after fee waiver for funds transfer across banks was implemented. They would establish a joint working group between commercial banks and ITMX to determine the conditions and clearly defined guidelines to temporarily eliminate a bank that encounters a system failure from the central system so as to prevent the problem from escalating and affecting the ITMX network and other banks. 

 

It would also allow immediate connection as soon as the system is restored and returns to normalcy.

 

They would build up capabilities for monitoring the overall system through the development of a central dashboard in order to update the status of each bank’s system and inform member banks to ensure timeliness in preparation and problem solving. 

 

They would review the design of the mobile banking system and display of transaction status message, which must be clear and easy to understand to avoid confusion.

 

The Thai banking system has developed a lot and become more complex, Somkid said. He added that though the possibility of recurring problems does exist, it has been much diminished thanks to implementation of stricter measures. Any technical difficulties have become more easily manageable enabling the operation to return to normalcy soon.

 

“We cannot offer a 100 per cent guarantee, but we will handle the system extremely carefully,” Somkid said yesterday at a press conference in response to a question on whether the incident could happen again.

 

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/business/30353827

 

-- © Copyright The Nation 2018-09-06

1 hour ago, webfact said:

“Other banks have also committed to upgrade their IT system. For example, it must instruct customers exactly what they must do and not just convey a ‘system error’ message after they make some mistakes during their transactions,” he added.

It also needs common agreed standards between all the banks too.

When making an inter-bank transfer for example, they need to transfer the account holder's name and details using exactly the same protocol.

Only this week using internet banking I made two transfers (within five minutes, from same bank account) to the same person, but to two different bank accounts.

The first transfer confirmed the account holder's name by displaying the first name and only a few letters of the surname.

The second transfer confirmed the account holder's name by displaying the first name but nothing of the surname.

 

In other words: Use some common sense.

 

Thailand is 40 years behind in banking technology.

Some of the banks, like the purple one, have hired Farang CIOs and CTOs, but I'm sure these Farang cannot believe how poor TH IT people generally are. 

There is a huge lack of talent in Thailand to handle this problem.

1 hour ago, Fex Bluse said:

There is a huge lack of talent in Thailand to handle this problem.

There's a huge lack of talent at Board level; how else can one explain BKK Bank's decision to junk Visa in favour of UnionPay?

40 minutes ago, mikebell said:

There's a huge lack of talent at Board level; how else can one explain BKK Bank's decision to junk Visa in favour of UnionPay?

Agreed.

Obviously someone has been promoted to the level of their incompetence.

 

Although, having said that, I did have an in depth discussion with the BKK Bank call centre. The person I spoke to said that it was on the cards that at some point 'in the future' Visa would be back on the menu.

 

Kasikorn's systems seem to have gotten slower with remittances and their verified by visa is acting up.

 

Combined with congested.branch offices, time to change bank. I think I'll give Krungsri a try, at least it's owned and ran by Japanese, some hope.

3 hours ago, mikebell said:

There's a huge lack of talent at Board level; how else can one explain BKK Bank's decision to junk Visa in favour of UnionPay?

Agreed.  This week I had to replace my Bangkok Bank Be1st Visa card, which had been retained by another bank's ATM.  The only card offered was the Union Pay card, so now I cannot buy anything on the Internet using the card.  Some people have advised on here that the old version can still be obtained from head Office but I was told that they have no more stocks. In response to my protest at losing the ability to buy on the internet, I was told that Mastercard is coming, but they had no idea when.

 

Is this considered to be "Thailand moving forward"?  I don't think so.

 

3 hours ago, bluesofa said:

Agreed.

Obviously someone has been promoted to the level of their incompetence.

 

Although, having said that, I did have an in depth discussion with the BKK Bank call centre. The person I spoke to said that it was on the cards that at some point 'in the future' Visa would be back on the menu.

 

That is funny as I was told this week that Mastercard is "on the way", but "we don't know when"

9 hours ago, mikebell said:

There's a huge lack of talent at Board level; how else can one explain BKK Bank's decision to junk Visa in favour of UnionPay?

Absolutely. Good point. Nearly forgot that one

23 hours ago, bluesofa said:

Agreed.

Obviously someone has been promoted to the level of their incompetence.

 

Although, having said that, I did have an in depth discussion with the BKK Bank call centre. The person I spoke to said that it was on the cards that at some point 'in the future' Visa would be back on the menu.

 

Sometime in the (near) future I will be changing my bank.

On 9/6/2018 at 5:45 AM, Fex Bluse said:

Thailand is 40 years behind in banking technology.

Some of the banks, like the purple one, have hired Farang CIOs and CTOs, but I'm sure these Farang cannot believe how poor TH IT people generally are. 

There is a huge lack of talent in Thailand to handle this problem.

 It's not only in technology.

 

Friend deposited some funds into bankbook at one of the high profile banks a while back, girl finished the transaction, finished the deposit slip etc., then screwed up and threw away the duplicate of the deposit slip. 

 

Friend said he wanted the duplicate, girl says no, not necessary. Farang asked for supervisor who came she listened then said 'she's new, she's still learning, never mind' and walked away.

 

Farang asked for the supervisor to return, repeated that he wanted a copy of the transaction, and asked for the screwed up document or a photocopy. supervisor says, 'not necessary because we (the bank) have the original'.

 

Another teller quickly took the bank original copy to the photocopy machine, made a copy and handed it to the customer with a polite apology then quickly went back to her spot on the counter. 

 

 

On 9/6/2018 at 11:31 AM, Retiredandhappyhere said:

Agreed.  This week I had to replace my Bangkok Bank Be1st Visa card, which had been retained by another bank's ATM.  The only card offered was the Union Pay card, so now I cannot buy anything on the Internet using the card. 

This also happened to me. They took my old card issued me with a new one and then told me of its deficiencies and problems compared with the original. I dont use i-phone, never buy on internet and will avoid all the new cashless systems but just getting money from an ATM takes longer, the 6 number code is harder to remember and I was casually told that I may not even be able to use my debit card in a Tesco store. This is advancement?

Edited September 8, 20187 yr by Lungstib

15 minutes ago, Lungstib said:

This also happened to me. They took my old card issued me with a new one and then told me of its deficiencies and problems compared with the original. I dont use i-phone, never buy on internet and will avoid all the new cashless systems but just getting money from an ATM takes longer, the 6 number code is harder to remember and I was casually told that I may not even be able to use my debit card in a Tesco store. This is advancement?

Interesting about you being told you can't use your Union Pay card in a Tesco store.

I'm guessing you mean Tesco-Lotus in Thailand, rather than Tesco in, say, the UK?

 

During a long complaining phone call to BKK Bank call centre when I said if they gave me a Useless Pay card (as I described it) I would close my account, as I couldn't use it anywhere in Thailand, I was told it was accepted everywhere that took cards.

All the staff needed to do was to process it the same way they would any other debit card and the system would accept it.

 

I told the girl that I had been in a Tesco Lotus checkout queue where someone in front of me presented a Useless Pay card and was told they didn't accept them. When I came to pay I used a Visa debit card with no problem.

 

I said to the girl if it was the case it could be used in Thailand, then BKK Bank needed to get their marketing department to publicise that fact to all of their debit card merchants. I also mentioned that on an expat forum, everyone else had the same contemptible opinion of Useless Pay.

 

4 hours ago, bluesofa said:

Interesting about you being told you can't use your Union Pay card in a Tesco store.

I'm guessing you mean Tesco-Lotus in Thailand, rather than Tesco in, say, the UK?

 

During a long complaining phone call to BKK Bank call centre when I said if they gave me a Useless Pay card (as I described it) I would close my account, as I couldn't use it anywhere in Thailand, I was told it was accepted everywhere that took cards.

All the staff needed to do was to process it the same way they would any other debit card and the system would accept it.

 

I told the girl that I had been in a Tesco Lotus checkout queue where someone in front of me presented a Useless Pay card and was told they didn't accept them. When I came to pay I used a Visa debit card with no problem.

 

I said to the girl if it was the case it could be used in Thailand, then BKK Bank needed to get their marketing department to publicise that fact to all of their debit card merchants. I also mentioned that on an expat forum, everyone else had the same contemptible opinion of Useless Pay.

 

Normal outcome then in Thailand where so many has fancy degrees and the entire middle class walks around with noises arrogantly in the air demanding they are respected as equals but where, for some unexplained reasons, ALMOSTYNOTHING is ever done professionally. 

 

"International standard" sure

On 9/6/2018 at 5:17 AM, bluesofa said:

It also needs common agreed standards between all the banks too.

When making an inter-bank transfer for example, they need to transfer the account holder's name and details using exactly the same protocol.

Only this week using internet banking I made two transfers (within five minutes, from same bank account) to the same person, but to two different bank accounts.

The first transfer confirmed the account holder's name by displaying the first name and only a few letters of the surname.

The second transfer confirmed the account holder's name by displaying the first name but nothing of the surname.

 

In other words: Use some common sense.

 

Using K-Bank for internet transfers to any 3rd party account, you need to set up a template first, which is verified by a OTP sent to your phone number. Unless you were very sure you're sending money to the right person, you wouldn't make a transfer. I thought it was idiot proof.

2 hours ago, tropo said:

Using K-Bank for internet transfers to any 3rd party account, you need to set up a template first, which is verified by a OTP sent to your phone number. Unless you were very sure you're sending money to the right person, you wouldn't make a transfer. I thought it was idiot proof.

Yes, that's the same for SCB which I happened to use for those two earlier transfers - set it up, then it requires an OTP to confirm it. But as we both agree, you need to know it's going to the correct account.

 

In the past, if it was a large amount, I would do a test transfer of a very small odd amount first ( say 56.78 Baht) and get the recipient to confirm that first.