Japan’s domestic interbank fund settlement system resumed normal operations on Thursday following a two-day glitch that disrupted millions of transactions.
(Bloomberg) — Japan’s domestic interbank fund settlement system resumed normal operations on Thursday following a two-day glitch that disrupted millions of transactions.
The Zengin System was restored and expected to restart at 8:30 a.m. local time, its operator said in a statement. The trouble had hit 11 banks since Tuesday morning, prompting lenders including Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc. to ask customers to use accounts at rivals to move money.
MUFG said on Thursday that transactions were able to be processed. There were still some delays as of 8:50 a.m., but it expected transfers to be completed in due course.
The glitch emerged after the replacement of relay computers during the long weekend that lasted through Monday. Earlier attempts at software fixes failed on Tuesday, prompting the government to urge the operator, Zengin-Net, an entity affiliated with the Japanese Bankers Association, to repair the outage quickly.
“We would like to ask the Zengin-Net and financial institutions to take all necessary actions for customer care and the recovery of the system as soon as possible,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said on Wednesday.
The fault prevented more than 2 million outbound remittances from the affected banks and disrupted a similar number of incoming transactions from other lenders.
“We apologize for causing this huge trouble,” Matsuo Tsuji, representative director at Zengin-Net, also known as the Japanese Banks’ Payment Clearing Network, told reporters on Wednesday.
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