BB’s IT system crashes

Something wrong has happened with the Bangladesh Bank’s electronic payment system, for which banks have been unable to settle their transactions for two days.

On Wednesday, a government holiday on the occasion of Bangla New Year, many banks were busy reversing their transactions made on Tuesday as the BB is yet to explain the banks what has exactly happened with its IT system.

According to multiple sources, BB’s IT team worked the entire night on Tuesday, but yet to fix the problems and are totally unsure whether they will get solutions on Thursday or not.

Some bankers said huge cash withdrawal pressure — three times more than normal day — on Tuesday, the last working day before the nation goes into a weeklong stricter lockdown to contain the spread of the deadly coronavirus, caused the BB’s payments system failure.

Another view is also strong. The BB has faced another cyber attack or some kind of bug still remains in its system from a huge cyber attack faced by Bangladesh’s 200 institutions, including the BB and 18 banks and many other government institutions, late last month.

Bankers have long been talking about the vulnerability of the BB’s IT system, but there is hardly anyone to pay heed to it.

“We have to be extra careful and filter more when we do transactions with Bangladesh Bank,” said the head of IT department of a private bank.

He wondered why the BB is not increasing its capacity to handle extra transaction load, which happens occasionally.

Bankers faced huge problems with the cheque clearing process and electronic fund transfer on Tuesday as the BB’s automated cheque clearing house was not working.

“Bangladesh Bank uses an 18/19 years old cheque clearing system. It uses images, which are not used in any country now,” said the managing director of an IT company that is engaged in payments system business.

He warned if BB does not improve its IT system, it will bust one day.

“Hackers are very sophisticated now, they are using artificial intelligence to carry out cyber attacks,” he noted.

What does the BB say?

Sirazul Islam, executive director and spokesman of BB, said he came to know about a problem with the BB’s IT system on Tuesday. He, however, came to know from this correspondent that the problem has not yet been fixed.

“A cable was cut and that caused the mishap,” he told the Business Insider Bangladesh.

Islam said the BB has linked with the government’s ICT department, which is linked up with some private vendors and the problem might come from them.