Issues on CPF website due to faulty integration component

SINGAPORE - A faulty integration component used by the upgraded Central Provident Fund (CPF) Board website is the root cause of the unavailability of some of its online services, which have yet to be restored since Dec 2.

The CPF Board said in a statement today (Dec 15) that the component "had not functioned as intended under situations of high traffic". This caused the wrong display of information in a few isolated cases, and prompted the CPF Board to take the system offline as a safeguard.

The finding follows an in-depth review by the CPF Board and its service vendor Microsoft. They are working to progressively restore the online services.

Currently, the necessary technical solutions are being applied and an extensive system testing is being conducted.

The CPF Board said sensitive data like members' account details are not affected by the technical issues, which are confined to the website layer.

"We apologise to members for the inconvenience caused. Much as we would like to bring the e-services online as quickly as possible, we cannot afford to compromise the stability and reliability of the e-services. We are working round the clock with Microsoft and all necessary resources have been mobilised to conduct thorough functional and load testing," said Ng Chee Peng, chief executive of the CPF Board.

"We will update members on the restoration of the CPF e-services once the effectiveness of the technical solutions have been robustly validated," he added.

The online services went down on Nov 30 for three days before some, including the checking of account balances, contribution history and transaction history, were back online.

To accommodate customers, the CPF Board has since extended the operating hours of its five service centres from 5pm to 6pm and of its call centres from 6pm to 7pm.

The CPF Board will also not levy late payment charges on members incurred due the current unavailability of the online services.

huizhen@sph.com.sg