Massive Capitec outage
Capitec was hit by a significant outage affecting all its customer-facing services on Friday, 19 July 2024.
The problem was caused by downtime at cloud cybersecurity platform Crowdstrike.
Outage tracking website Downdetector showed a big surge in reports of issues with Capitec’s services from around 07:00.
The majority of complaints were related to mobile banking, online banking, and ATM services.
Numerous customers on X/Twitter complained about transactions getting declined, ATM services not working, and the mobile banking app being inaccessible.
“I’m held ransom at a filling station because payments are declining. Now I have to wait or leave my phone,” one user said.
“What is up with your app? I can’t cash send or pay beneficiary. Now the app says ‘no Internet connection’ and refuses to open. Very frustrating,” another customer said.
Other Capitec users attempting to open their accounts on the iOS mobile banking app were presented with an error “Unable to process your selection, try again later.”
In response, Capitec’s support team said it was currently experiencing nationwide issues affecting all services.
“We are working hard to resolve this. Your patience and understanding are greatly appreciated. We apologise for any inconvenience caused,” the bank stated.
The bank also sent an SMS to some customers, informing them it was aware of the issues.
Capitec’s previous major service outage, in August 2022, lasted for several days. In that instance, the problems were caused by an infrastructure issue in its central servers.
The graph below shows the increase in reports of Capitec problems on Downdetector on Friday morning.
Update — Services restored
At 10:00 on Friday morning, Capitec confirmed that its card payments, ATM services. and digital channels were up and running again.
“Client service remains our top priority, and we deeply regret the severe impact this disruption has had on your banking experience,” Capitec said.
“We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience caused and appreciate your patience and understanding during this challenging time.”
“Importantly, we want to reassure our clients that their bank accounts and personal data remain secure and unaffected by this incident.”
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