Biggest African Bank’s Outage Shuts Out Customers in 9 Countries

Adelaide Changole, Bloomberg News

A logo sits on display outside the offices of Standard Bank Group Ltd. bank in Johannesburg, South Africa, on Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2020. South Africa’s biggest lenders were faced with the pressing need to raise provisions to protect against souring loans, while demand for credit slumped as the coronavirus lockdown took a toll on business customers. Photographer: Waldo Swiegers/Bloomberg , Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- Standard Bank Group Ltd. said customers in nine countries may be experiencing difficulties logging into their digital banking accounts after an outage.

Africa’s biggest bank said the service disruption was reported at 11:54 a.m. in Johannesburg, primarily impacting Android devices. In response to questions from Bloomberg, the lender said its banking and internet banking applications have been affected.

The Johannesburg-based firm has operations in 20 countries across sub-Saharan Africa. It said technical teams are working to resolve the issue and are urging customers to use alternatives including mobile banking, ATM and card options.

The bank’s shares were up as much as 1.2% on Thursday, before erasing gains and trading little changed by 4 p.m. in Johannesburg.