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Hour-long outage not due to security issues, no personal data compromised: Nets
This Nets transactions failed to proceed earlier on Friday (Feb 2). Services have since resumed. Photo: Albert Wai/TODAY
February 3rd, 2018 | 13:06 PM | 1461 views
SINGAPORE
For over an hour on Friday (Feb 2), all cashless services provided by Nets were disrupted, leading to customers at food outlets, supermarkets and even hawker centres having to resort to cash payments, and hitting the tills of thousands of businesses across the island.
The islandwide disruption, which the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) said it took a “serious view” of, affected about 100,000 Nets payment points, including at major retailers, food courts and supermarkets.
Service was restored around 3pm, Nets said in a statement. It did not identify a cause, but ruled out security issues.
“This incident was not related to any security issues. No personal data was compromised as a result of this incident,” said the spokesperson. “We deeply regret the inconvenience caused to customers and merchants and thank them for their patience as they waited for service to be restored.”
Some retailers and F&B outlets told TODAY their business was affected slightly when Nets services went down, though most customers were able to use other modes of payment.
For Penny University café, its manager Fahmi Zailani said about five to six customers were unable to use Nets, and paid with either cash or other forms of cashless payment such as AliPay.
Ms Adeline Loo, owner of Medic Drugstore in Tanjong Pagar, said about 10 of her customers were affected. A technician from Nets had gone down to their store at about 4.30pm to change the Nets transaction machines.
“He said the whole system broke down… we didn’t call him to come at all,” she added.
Ms Nurul Tiqa, supervisor at the Watson’s outlet at 100AM shopping mall, said it was not peak period at that time, and “less than 20” customers were affected.
Mr Sam Tan, who operates the Peter & Sam DIY store in Tanjong Pagar, said he had to tell five of his customers to go to the nearby ATM to withdraw cash for payments instead.
Over at a NTUC FairPrice supermarket, customers were grumbling at being unable to use Nets for payment. Mrs Nancy Ang, 69, said: “The cashier seemed confused and didn’t know why it was down… many customers were grumbling.”
Customers of DBS/POSB, HSBC, Maybank, OCBC, Standard Chartered and UOB banks can make Nets payments using their physical or contactless ATM cards or mobile devices. There are more than 100,000 acceptance points in Singapore, including major retailers, food courts and supermarkets.
There are about 35,000 unified point-of-sale terminals that accept Nets and Nets FlashPay along with debit and credit cards, and 30,000 QR acceptance points across the island.
Nets processed about S$24 billion in transactions in 2016. In 2017, the company launched the Nets QR Code and NetsPay as part of Singapore’s push towards cashless payments.
Source:
courtesy of TODAY
by Louisa Tang
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