HDFC Bank Customers Left in Lurch
By Tabrez Khan
Mumbai, Sep 02, 2008 1525 hrs IST

Lakhs of HDFC customers pan India including retail and enterprise customers of the bank could not carry out transactions, or operate ATMs due to a technical snag most part today.

The technical snag that started wee hours today was not rectified till 3.15 pm, as CXOtoday published the story.

"HDFC Bank's IT systems have been down since 4 am. I have been trying to withdraw cash and have had a hard time as the system is down, reportedly for maintenance purposes," said T. K, an account holder at HDFC.

The bank's netbanking interface was also down, so the Internet banking facility could also not be used, he said.

The bank posted a message on its website informing people about system inoperation between 4 am and 10.30 am. The website later reported that the system will continue to be unavailable till 2 pm. The bank subsequently extended this to 7 pm.

Neeraj Jha, corporate communications, HDFC Bank said, "We agree it is causing inconvenience to customers. We are working on it and expect the systems to be up by 3.00 pm."

Generally, banks including HDFC carry on maintenance work during the night so that customers do not face any inconvenience.

"It's not really maintenance, it's a technical snag actually. It's just a case of wrong wording," said he. (Updated at 6.03 pm)

On being asked about the nature of the technical snag, Jha refused to comment.

HDFC's head of technology, Anil Jaggia was also unavailable for comment.