Hong Kong Monetary Authority apologises after electronic payment platform crashes on Sunday morning during system maintenance
- City’s de facto central bank says upgrade and relocation of Faster Payment System took longer than expected
- The online transaction system eventually came back up at 1pm
The Hong Kong Monetary Authority, the city’s de facto central bank, apologised on Sunday after its electronic payment platform crashed for about five hours because of “unforeseen circumstances” during a scheduled maintenance.
The system upgrade for the Faster Payment System (FPS), which allows millions of customers to make cross-bank payments by entering a phone number or email address, was originally scheduled from 2.45am to 7.45am.
But the authority announced at 9.30am that extra time was needed to complete the maintenance. It eventually came back online at 1pm.
All FPS services, including real-time fund transfers and registration of account proxy, were interrupted. The electronic platform, launched in 2018, provides free online transfer of money between bank accounts, online shopping and bill and merchant payments.
As of the end of September there were more than 9 million FPS accounts registered for use in the city.