Commenting on the DBS and Citibank outage caused by data centre failure, SMU Principal Lecturer of Information Systems and Director, Master of IT in Business (Financial Technology & Analytics) Programme Patrick Thng, who has close to three decades of experience in banking, including as managing director at various banks, likened data centres to a car's engine. He said banks activate what they call "offline mode" should data centres fail, and IT incidents, such as a delay in processing, occur daily but some of these go unnoticed by customers. He however noted that service outages will still negatively impact the bank’s reputation and may have some financial repercussions.