BML apologizes for last week's service interruptions

Bank of Maldives (BML)’s CEO and Managing Director Tim Sawyer has apologized for the difficulties faced by the bank’s customers due to service interruptions last week. 

In a press conference on Sunday afternoon, Sawyer provided assurance the bank will make changes to ensure it does not happen again. 

The service interruptions took place following a major upgrade to BML’s core banking system on November 21. 

“While we successfully completed this upgrade, we unfortunately encountered issues in the week that followed. My utmost priority is to provide you with 24/7 banking on all our channels. Last week however, we did not deliver as expected of us,” he said. 

Sawyer noted that the bank saw prolonged downtimes that caused serious interruptions to its services, especially between November 28-29. 

“For this, I’d like to extend my sincere apologies to all our customers,” he said. 

Sawyer said the bank’s teams worked around the clock to identify the root causes for the service interruptions and develop immediate fixes.  

“We are continuing to monitor performance closely, and are happy to report the systems are stable. We are also conducting a review of what happened, and we will make changes to ensure that this does not happen again,” he said. 

Some of the bank’s customers also faced errors for transactions made during the period. 

Sawyer said the bank was working hard to resolve the issues with the utmost urgency.  

Customers who have any outstanding issues have been asked to send the bank a message via internet or mobile banking. 

"As I mentioned in my email to our customers this morning, we are privileged to touch the lives of almost everyone in the country as the national bank. This is a privilege we take seriously. And we will do better,” said Sawyer.