By Tan Weizhen & Chua Hian Hou

DBS Bank has been plagued by a spate of technical issues over the last few days.

On Tuesday, branch computers were hit, preventing customers from withdrawing more than $2,000 or updating their passbooks.

Then on Wednesday and yesterday, customers had problems logging into the Internet banking service, with many complaining that they could not log in and faced problems accessing functions even if they could.

A DBS spokesman confirmed that it had been hit by an 'isolated technical glitch'. It said the problem was fixed after three hours.

The spokesman added that the bank's ATMs were not affected by the glitch, so customers could still withdraw and deposit funds that way.

The bank's counter staff were also instructed to allow customers who needed more funds to make bigger cash withdrawals, up to their personal withdrawal limit.

But several callers who contacted The Straits Times hotline also said they were told by bank staff they would not be able to cash their cheques, transfer funds electronically to an offshore foreign currency account, or update their bank passbooks.

When asked, DBS would say only that the glitch 'affected certain services at our branches including withdrawal of cash and updating of passbooks'.

As for the disruption in Internet banking, a DBS spokesman said: 'We are aware of the intermittent interruptions to DBS Internet banking and are doing our best to resume uninterrupted online services.

'We would like to reassure our customers that this has not, in any way, compromised the security of our online services.'

The bank said the two incidents are in no way related.

The glitches have led to complaints, with some saying they urgently needed to pay their bills, but could not.

One customer, Mr Julian Tan, 37, said he had been trying to access the site from Wednesday afternoon to night, but to no avail. He finally got through yesterday morning, only to hit a wall again moments later.

'Internet banking was non-existent,' said the IT professional, who said the website kept hanging and he could not even log in.

Another customer, student Ryan Tan, 29, said he could log in after a few tries, although he said he took a few more tries to even use it - the site had failed again after he logged in, and again when he tried to access some functions.

Computer security experts said the problem could be due to any number of reasons.

'It could range from technical problems such as software or hardware failure, to virus or even hacker attacks. It could also be an overload on the server,' said Mr Gerard Tan, president of the Association of Information Security Professionals.

'It is really very hard to speculate,' he added.

This article was first published in The Straits Times.