Ubank, other Australian "challenger" banks, hit by lengthy DA outage

A network outage at Data Action (DA) caused app and internet banking problems for a number of Australian banks and credit unions, including NAB-owned ubank, Beyond Bank, Defence Bank and People’s Choice.

Multiple sources with knowledge of the incident confirmed to iTnews that it occurred on DA infrastructure.

The company provides core banking and digital banking services to at least 17 “challenger banks”.

DA said on its website that its services underpin some 2 million bank accounts and more than 1 million transfers a day.

"Data Action (DA) is experiencing a network outage that is affecting banking services for our clients and their customers, who are having difficulty accessing internet banking or their mobile banking app," a spokesperson told iTnews on Thursday afternoon.

"We have logged a series of incidents in the past 24 hours and our teams are working hard to identify the causes and resolve these issues as quickly as possible.

"We are in constant contact with our clients to keep them updated of any new information as it comes to hand. We’re so sorry for the frustration this is causing, and we are doing our utmost to fix it and restore full functionality for our clients and their customers."

The problems left customers unable to access their accounts and are also causing issues with Osko transfers, although customers could still pay with cards.

Impacted banks and credit unions told iTnews that customers with urgent needs could reach out via their respective contact centres, which remain operational.

Earlier in the day, banks such as ubank took the blame directly for the outage.

However, as the issues cascaded to more institutions, it became apparent that a common aggregation point was responsible.

Some impacted institutions went on to point to an undisclosed third-party as the root cause.

“Unfortunately, we are experiencing an outage that is affecting a large number of banks,” Beyond Bank said in social posts on X.

BCU Bank similarly said in a statement on its website, “We're working with our third-party provider to investigate this issue as a matter of priority.”

Of DA’s clients, those warning of issues include ubank, BCU Bank, Beyond Bank, People’s Choice Credit Union, Defence Bank, Credit Union SA and Summerland Bank.

The timeline of the incident is still unclear: Beyond Bank appears to have been the first to report problems, at 11pm AEDT on Wednesday February 14, based on detailed status notifications published to Facebook. However, Data Action's statement suggests the origin could pre-date Beyond Bank's notifications.

Ubank first acknowledged problems with its internet banking services and app at around 11.30am Thursday, and other institutions followed suit throughout the day.

Just after 9pm AEDT, systems had partially recovered, with users able to log into ubank's app, but elements of the pages were either missing or slow to load.

Full recovery was declared at 10.50pm AEDT.

The incident drew comparisons with the 2022 RBA clearing service outage, which also impacted a large number of institutions simultaneously.