MAS and DBS computer glitch

From what I read, MAS is going to hold DBS Bank accountable for the computer glitch that cause failure of banking services for 7 hours on 7 July 2010.

After operating its massive online banking services for many decades, this is the first time that DBS has encountered a serious failure of this nature and it is caused by a "routine repair job". It is not the second, third or repeated occasions.

Several thousand customers were inconvenienced, but no money or lives were lost.  We should expect this type of unfortunate, embarrassing event to occur, and should not overact to them. It is better to learn from the experience.

Singapore has a culture of "no tolerance for failure". Is this going to be another example of over-reacting to a  mistake, to edge into the psyche of Singaporeans?

If we are not careful, another Singaporean culture will manifest - finger pointing.  DBS officers will be pointing fingers to IBM and in turn IBM will be pointing fingers to their subcontractors or employees. A scrape-goat will eventually be found.

The likely response to this type of problem will be another layer of security and complexity and expensive consultants to advise on their implementation. Eventually, bank charges will be increased to cover the higher cost.

I hope that common sense will prevail over these dominant Singapore cultures, and that a low cost solution be found. There is no need to have a fully integrated system that can be brought down by a "routine repair job". It is better to design computer systems that can operate independently to handle the volumnous small transactions and have simple recovery procedures that can be activated easily, when the unexpected happens.

Tan Kin Lian