Despite Indonesia’s banking sector scoring the highest for profitability in Southeast Asia, building a back-up system for the ATM network was apparently too costly for bankers to implement.
Despite Indonesia’s banking sector scoring the highest for profitability in Southeast Asia, building a back-up system for the ATM network was apparently too costly for bankers to implement.
As a result, thousands of ATMs and dozens of bank branches were crippled by a satellite malfunction on the weekend.
Kenny, a 33-year-old doctor, went to a Bank Central Asia (BCA) ATM in Teraskota Mall in South Tangerang, Banten, on Sunday to withdraw cash. However, all ATMs in the area were offline.
“The security said the ATMs couldn’t be used, but when I checked my mobile banking, it worked fine,” she said on Monday.
Aulia, 30, a tax consultant found that all ATMs in her office building had gone offline on Saturday. Later on Sunday, while shopping, it took longer for her BCA debit card to work.
“The EDC [electronic data capture] machine was working on Monday, but the approval took longer,” she said.
Kenny and Aulia were among hundreds of thousands of bank customers in Indonesia who were unable to complete ATM transactions over the weekend due an unparalleled shift in the Telkom 1 satellite’s antenna, which was reported on Friday at 4:51 p.m.
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