SBI system crashes; branches open tomorrow

Kolkata/Mumbai/New Delhi/Chennai: Business transactions at SBI branches across the country were hit due to a satellite link failure, much to the inconvenience of lakhs of customers.

State Bank of India (SBI), the nation¿s largest lender, in a statement issued in Mumbai said all its branches will remain open for normal business tomorrow, though it is a national holiday on account of 'Gandhi Jayanti', to make up for the loss of working hours today.

Services in West Bengal were crippled ahead of the Puja festival that prompted Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to call up Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee.

Banerjee told reporters in Kolkata that she telephoned the Finance Minister about the problem and sought a remedy.

She further said state Finance Minister Amit Mitra talked to the SBI Chief Manager who assured that all branches in the state would function till late tonight to clear dues of the customers.

The bank's spokesperson in Mumbai could not confirm whether ATM services were also hit.

The spokesperson said, "Our satellite link from Bellary failed and the operations across all our branches were impacted. It will be a full working day for SBI tomorrow."

Later in the night, the spokesperson confirmed that services were restored to normalcy.

The nation's largest lender has about 13,560 branches across the country.

Attributing the troubles to technical glitches in the network, a senior bank official in New Delhi said all 1,400 branches in the circle will remain open tomorrow.

A Chennai report said that till 1400 hrs today the services in all the branches were affected due to a system crash. "Our main services were affected and that led to the

failure of CBS (core banking solutions) facility. We were not able to connect with other branches so services like clearing of cheques were affected," a bank official said.

The official said ATM services were, however, not affected and were working properly. The bank has around 600 branches and over 1,000 ATMs in Tamil Nadu.

"All SBI branches will remain open to customers on October 2, (Sunday). We sincerely regret the inconvenience caused to our customers today," the bank said in a statement issued in Mumbai.

In Chandigarh region the bank¿s 900 branches would remain open tomorrow.

"Due to technical fault appeared in networking, the branches of SBI¿s Chandigarh Circle, could not function properly today, causing inconvenience to customers," the bank said.

The branches will remain open from 1000 hrs to till 1400 hrs, in the circle, it said. The Chandigarh circle has jurisdiction over Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir and Chandigarh.

Source: Financial Express