On Friday, a significant Microsoft outage impacted banks globally, as reported by Downdetector, a website that tracks cyber outages. This outage affected major lenders in Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and Israel, while Indian banks remained largely unaffected.
Impact on Banks in Australia and New Zealand
According to Downdetector, Australia’s largest lender, Commonwealth Bank, experienced disruptions to its operations. Other Australian banks, such as ANZ and Westpac, were also affected. In New Zealand, ASB Bank faced similar issues.
Impact on Banks in South Africa
South Africa’s Capitec reported nationwide service disruptions due to an unexpected issue with an international service provider. Despite the disruptions, card payments and ATMs were operational, and customer accounts remained secure. Capitec is working to resolve the matter as soon as possible.
Impact on Banks in Israel
In Israel, a spokesperson for the central bank noted that a global technical malfunction at CrowdStrike had a partial technical impact on the country’s banking system. The Bank of Israel is addressing the issue.
Indian Banks Remain Unaffected
In India, banks and payment systems were largely unaffected by the Microsoft outage. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) confirmed that the Indian financial sector remained insulated from the global outage. Only 10 banks and NBFCs experienced minor disruptions, which have either been resolved or are being addressed.
“Large-scale outage in Microsoft Services is impacting IT systems globally, leading to disruptions in various sectors. The Reserve Bank has made an assessment of the impact of this outage on its Regulated Entities. Critical systems of most banks are not in the cloud, and only a few banks are using the CrowdStrike tool,” the RBI stated.
| Country | Impact |
|---|---|
| Australia | Commonwealth Bank, ANZ, and Westpac reported disruptions. |
| New Zealand | ASB Bank reported issues. |
| South Africa | Capitec experienced nationwide service disruptions. |
| Israel | Partial technical impact on the banking system. |
| India | Minor disruptions for 10 banks and NBFCs, largely unaffected. |
Response from Indian Banks
India’s largest lender, State Bank of India (SBI), reported no impact from the outage. “We are all fine,” said Dinesh Khara, chairman of SBI. The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) also confirmed that the country’s payment architecture, including the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), was unaffected.
HDFC Bank, the largest private sector lender, stated that its systems were unaffected by the global outage. Ramesh Lakshminarayanan, group head for information technology at HDFC Bank, said, “Our systems are unaffected by the global outage. There is no impact on banking operations.”
Officials at ICICI Bank and Axis Bank also confirmed that their systems were operating normally without any impact from the outage.
The widespread Microsoft outage disrupted flights, banks, media outlets, and companies around the world. Despite Microsoft’s efforts to gradually fix the issue affecting access to Microsoft 365 apps and services, disruptions continued for hours.