Commercial banks have ensured that the online banking system will avoid repeating glitches during the peak period at year-end by doubling their mobile banking transaction capacity, says the chief of the Thai Bankers' Association (TBA).
All banks have prepared for a large volume of digital transactions at year-end, when fund transfers and payments always peak, said TBA chairman Predee Daochai. Banks also strengthened their security systems to prevent financial fraud and unexpected situations.
"With these preparations, we hope everything will go smoothly," Mr Predee said.
Users of the national e-payment system, PromptPay, were left frustrated when computer glitches related to formatting the calendar for 2018 held their cash hostage for about eight hours on Dec 31, 2017.
Banks' electronic money transfers, withdrawals and payment services crashed again for several hours on Aug 31. The system outage started at Kasikornbank (KBank) because of human error on the internal network, disrupting other banks' systems.
The crashes compelled banks and the National Interbank Transaction Management and Exchange Co (ITMX) to double mobile banking transaction capacity during the peak period by the end of this year to avert a future system malfunction.
Mr Predee said heavy online banking transactions reflect stronger growth in mobile banking service than expected earlier.
Mobile banking transactions have surged exponentially since banks waived digital transaction fees in late March.
"Thailand has made progress in digital banking development compared with regional markets," Mr Predee said.
This will encourage digital adoption and drive the country to become a cashless society, he said.
KBank president Kattiya Indaravijaya said she will stand by the bank's technology subsidiary, Kasikorn Business Technology Group, during the year-end period to monitor overall banking transactions.
The bank is well prepared for both technology and security systems during the peak period, she said.
KBank has increased the maximum capacity of its mobile banking app, K Plus, to 10,000 transactions per second from 4,000 earlier.
Given that the bank is the country's largest mobile banking service provider with 10 million users, it aims to increase capacity for peak periods to 50,000 transactions per second next year.
