Clash of the titans part 3?

My office sits across the headquarters of Singapore's largest bank, which was the scene of what some called the most widespread Internet banking outage in Singapore this week.

According to media reports, senior DBS management physically went down to bank branches, apologized publicly and promised investigations into the seven-hour long incident.

Internet banking has been a boon to Singapore banks. I no longer see the pre-opening hours of queues formed by people just wanting to check their bank balances or to withdraw the week's grocery spending. The ATM network and Internet banking ensures that the bank can run 24x7 and scale up without having to open physical branches.

I would suspect that a clear majority of retail transactions take place over this electronic platform. All this boils down to a realization of how important this particular service offering has become.

Observers on the side are also now pointing to whether DBS' outsourcing service provider could be implicated. While it is still early days, if a fight ever evolved involving the breakdown of a live IT system, then this could be the equivalent of a outsourcing Armageddon.

The outsourcing industry has not seen much litigation due to the confidential way most project disputes are handled. Even so, this incident will give many thinking about outsourcing some food for thought.