Outage hits ICICI Bank mobile, net banking; customers take to social media

Glitch in server caused disruption; Services restored after 2-3 hours

ICICI Bank’s mobile and internet banking platforms faced outages on Friday due to server issues causing inconvenience to its customers though services were restored later.

Customers of the second largest private sector lender took to social media to complain that they were unable to access the lender’s internet banking platform and mobile banking app to perform transactions.

The bank claims over 90% of savings account transactions, - both financial and non-financial –are done through digital channels.

Bank sources said the online banking platforms faced outages since the bank’s server was facing glitches for around 2 to 3 hours.

ICICI Bank’s retail broking arm ICICI Direct also faced similar outages.

“Dear Customer, http://ICICIdirect.com is down at the moment. We are working to get things back to normal as quick as possible and will update you here. We deeply regret the inconvenience caused,” ICICI Direct said in a twitter post.

Earlier in December 2020, the Reserve Bank of India barred HDFC Bank from onboarding credit card customers and launching digital products as the bank’s internet and mobile platforms faced repeated outages. The ban, which was in place for 8-15 months, impacted the bank’s credit card and other digital business.