SBI fixes 'technical snag' in website

India’s largest lender State Bank of India (SBI) today said it has resolved the “technical problem” with its website, which had become temporarily unavailable due to a reported hacking attempt.

“I don’t want to use the word ‘hacking’. It was a temporary technical problem which was resolved by yesterday evening,” the public sector bank’s Deputy Managing Director (IT) R P Sinha said.

There was a technical problem since Friday evening that disrupted product information services of the website. The website was now functioning smoothly, he said.

The website www.sbi.co.in was the one affected by the technical snag, but the other site www.onlinesbi.com was operating normally.

However, media reports quoted Sinha as saying yesterday that “attempts were made to disrupt the system from outside the country”.

After the restoration of the website, Sinha stressed that the technical fault did not affect any transactions, including fund transfer, nor resulted in any loss of customer data. SBI has an online customer base of above 30 lakh. The lender has a branch strength of around 11,000 and about 15 crore accountholders.

The sites are maintained by the bank’s IT department based out of the SBI Gobal IT Centre in Belapur.

Meanwhile, SBI has launched internet kiosks at ATMs at railway stations to enable customers avail themselves of services like ticket reservation and utility bill payments among other basic banking services.

The bank plans to set up 383 similar kiosks by the end of this financial year. At the kiosks, the bank’s customers can book their tickets through the IRCTC gateway and get a printed electronic slip instantly.

For the service, customers will have to pay Rs 10 per booking to SBI, besides the fees that IRCTC charges.

Apart from ticket booking, customers can also avail themselves of services like fund transfer, balance enquiry, bill payments and tax payments at these kiosks.