Finance vows vigilance after telecom outage

Authorities remained vigilant Monday in the wake of a fire at KT’s switching center as the outage had some effect on finance and banking.

The Financial Services Commission (FSC) and major banks said that they had restored most disrupted services, with automated teller machines and payments systems affected by the event back online.

“Most of the banks using KT circuits have recovered their services,” the regulator said in a statement.

Nearly 200 ATMs in northern Seoul regions - Mapo, Eunpyeong and Seodaemun Districts - were affected, according to the regulator.

Eighteen NongHyup Bank branches experienced disruptions over the weekend, but all systems were restored as of Monday, while KEB Hana Bank changed circuits at five machines.

Services at KB Kookmin and Shinhan were not seriously disrupted as the banks adopt dual circuit systems, with connectivity provided by other telecommunications operators in the event of a disruption. The systems allowed the banks to utilize alternate lines from SK Telecom and LG U+.

Some of Woori Bank’s ATMs had connectivity issues, but service has been restored at most of the affected machines.

Choi Jong-ku, head of the FSC, held an emergency meeting Sunday to make sure that the financial institutions were working quickly on recovering lost services.

The commission also said that it is keeping tabs on the operation of securities trading systems to prevent the disruption from affecting the markets.

As of press time, no problems were reported with the trading system.

BY PARK EUN-JEE [park.eunjee@joongang.co.kr]