Following the technical difficulties experienced at Capitec on Friday, the bank told Business Report that systems are now back online.
In a statement sent to Business Report, the bank said, “Capitec experienced significant disruptions across all our banking channels today due to a global downtime incident involving Crowdstrike, a key technology service provider. We recognise the inconvenience this has caused and wish to provide clarity and assurance to our valued clients.”
Capitec, which is the biggest bank by customers in South Africa, sent an SMS to its customers on Friday where the bank said it was experiencing technical issues and that the bank is working hard to resolve the issues.
“Since early this morning, clients have faced difficulties accessing various banking services, including online banking, mobile app transactions, and card payments. Our tech team has worked quickly to resolve the problem - we are pleased to report that all our banking has now been fully restored. Importantly, we want to reassure our clients that their bank accounts and personal data remain secure and unaffected by this incident,” Capitec said.
“Client service remains our top priority, and we deeply regret the severe impact this disruption has had on your banking experience. We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience caused and appreciate your patience and understanding during this challenging time,” it further said.
Shares in the cybersecurity group CrowdStrike were down some 20% in pre-market trading on Wall Street on Friday amid suggestions it was involved in a massive IT outage hitting companies and airports worldwide.
According to Oleg Gorokhovsky, founder of the Ukrainian online bank Monobank, the outage resulted from "an interaction between the CrowdStrike antivirus" software and the Windows operating system of US tech giant Microsoft, whose shares were down around three percent in pre-market trading.
BUSINESS REPORT