By Rachel Chan

SINGAPORE'S biggest bank has apologised for what is believed to be its biggest lapse in service so far.

DBS, which has over four million users and 81 branches, said yesterday that it detected "technical difficulties" at 3am yesterday, which disrupted its services for seven hours.

Mr David Gledhill, managing director and head of group technology and operations at DBS, said: "The bank has multiple levels of redundancy to protect against such occurrences and this is the first time a problem of this nature has occurred.

"We are now conducting a full-scale investigation with our main vendor, IBM. We deeply regret the inconvenience caused."

Customers could not withdraw money from over 1,000 POSB and DBS ATMs - the island's largest ATM network. All 230 cash-deposit machines were down, too.

Consumers could not pay for their purchases at shops with DBS or POSB ATM cards, and online users could not log on to their Internet banking accounts.

Fashion-design student Melvin Tan, 23, was unable to pay his $122 bill at the dentist's with his POSB ATM card.

"Thankfully, my sister had given me a Standard Chartered credit card, which I was to use only for emergencies," he said.

Long queues formed at branches at 8.30am, as customers had to withdraw money or deposit cash the oldschool way - over the counter.

The bank said that it honoured cash cheques not exceeding $500 on the spot between 8.30am and 10am yesterday.

Cash- and cheque-deposit and ATM machines were back in order at 10am, and all other systems were restored progressively by lunchtime, it said.

Additional manpower was deployed to its branches and call centre to assist with customer queries. Branches with regular opening hours stayed open for an extra two hours yesterday, from 4.30pm to 6.30pm.

DBS, which acquired POSB in 1998, has been plagued by service failures from time to time, though not of this scale and duration. For example, in 2001, its ATM network, Internet-banking services and cash-deposit machines were stalled for 45 minutes.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) said that banks are required to rectify system failures, restore services and "strengthen the system and prevent future recurrence". As part of its supervision of banks, MAS "will take appropriate supervisory action where necessary".

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