Mysterious ICBC banking glitch sparks panic, frustration among customers
Banking services at ICBC - including internet, mobile and phone banking as well as automated teller machine services - were “paralysed” on Sunday morning for nearly one hour.
Technical disruptions at China’s largest state-owned lender caused temporary panic among customers at the weekend, with some expressing fears of a hacking or deliberately engineered credit squeeze.
Various banking services at ICBC - including internet, mobile and phone banking as well as automated teller machine services - were “paralysed” on Sunday morning for nearly one hour.
Unable to withdraw cash from ATMs or get through to the customer help hotline, some customers believed the outage was longer, but state broadcaster CCTV reported it was 45 minutes.
Cities said to be affected by the problems included Shanghai, Beijing, Wuhan, Chengdu and Xiamen, the Shanghai Daily newspaper reported.
The bank issued a statement via Sina Weibo on Sunday, reassuring customers that electronic channels were undergoing “system upgrades” since 10.38am and that certain services would be affected. The bank said it had restored all systems by 11.23am.
The glitch at the bank – one of China’s “big four” state lenders and largest in the world in terms of profit and market value – sparked concerns of a national credit crunch as it came just days after interbank lending rates had hit new record highs.