DBS PayLah! experienced a brief disruption today morning.

The service has since resumed.

The disruption, which lasted for several hours, began at around 7 am Singapore time.

During this period, customers encountered difficulties accessing the online service.

Complaints About Outage

Complaints on the service started pouring into Downdetector, a website that tracks service disruptions, around 7.45 am.

Image Source: Downdetector.sg

By approximately 9 am, the website had received 397 reports from DBS customers facing issues.

DBS took to Facebook to address the problem.

At approximately 10 am, they announced that access to PayLah! was intermittent and advised customers to consider alternative payment methods like DBS digibank Scan and Pay, or DBS/POSB debit or credit cards.

For those customers who were able to access PayLah! and qualify for the DBS 5 Million Hawker Meals cashback, the bank assured that rebates would be issued by Friday.

This cashback initiative, launched in February, supports hawkers by offering a $3 discount every Friday for the first 100,000 users on hawker meals across the island.

At 11.46 am, DBS provided an update, requesting patience as they actively worked to fully restore PayLah! services.

Service Outages

Service outages in centralised finance systems are not unusual, and server uptime and availability remain a challenge for the industry.

That notwithstanding, the bank has been actively exploring blockchain technology as a means to enhance the efficiency of money transfers and asset trading, regardless of the ongoing regulatory scrutiny on the cryptocurrency industry.

When done properly, blockchains can be efficient, and have 0% downtime.

DBS Bank is collaborating with the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) on initiatives to develop safer and more efficient channels for business deals.

Project Guardian for instance, is an initiative launched last year that aims to test the feasibility of applications in asset tokenisation.

This project explores the use of public blockchains to create open and interoperable networks for trading digital assets across various platforms and liquidity pools, including the existing financial infrastructure.

Despite a stringent approach towards the cryptocurrency industry, Singapore's central bank remains keen on leveraging emerging technologies to strengthen its role in the financial sector.

Public-private projects, led by Singapore's central bank, are set to examine whether traditional banks can demonstrate compelling use cases for blockchain technology, which underpins cryptocurrencies.