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The story
Around 1:30 PM on the 6th, a system outage simultaneously struck 128 shinkin (credit unions) across the Tokai region and points west, knocking out ATM deposits/withdrawals and teller transactions. According to the Shinkin Central Data Center, the glitch originated on the western Japan side; while unauthorized access was initially suspected, the cause was later explained as “equipment failure.” The thread was split between fears of a bank-run panic fueled by a string of recent communication outages, and skepticism over why it took so long to switch over to a backup system.
A communications failure has hit 128 credit unions across western Japan, leaving them unable to process transactions.
At a credit union in Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture, a sign posted at the ATM entrance read: “ATMs temporarily suspended due to system failure.”
According to the Shinkin Shared Data Center, which manages ATMs and other systems for credit unions, teller transactions and ATM deposits/withdrawals have been unavailable since around 1:30 PM on the 6th at 128 credit unions across the Tokai region and areas further west.
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
Tellers down too?! Monday's gonna be rough
Everyone's gonna rush in to pull out a lump of cash for bills due
A bank run is the scariest part of all this
The long downtime doesn't add up
Usually if a point is "this absolutely cannot go down," don't you build in redundancy so it fails over instantly?
Well that's the standard answer though
If they said "we got hacked" people would panic
What's gonna happen to my 13,000 yen in savings…
13,000 yen? (about $85)
For reference, the eastern Japan hub runs on Fujitsu hardware
I've actually been on-site there before,
but I'm not telling you exactly where
Banks have multiple data centers,
so checking convenience store ATMs tells you nothing
The Shinkin Center is basically THE center for almost every credit union
Okay, thread's done here
Nah, this is nowhere near done
If distrust in financial institutions spreads and everyone starts pulling cash, the economy collapses
This reeks of a cyberattack
If this turns into a comms failure, today's register systems might not even be able to process payments at all
If the same thing hit an electronics retailer or supermarket, short of clerks doing math on a calculator and customers paying cash and getting change by hand,
it'd basically be the same as a blackout if it's a comms outage
Given how many of these have hit back-to-back in such a short span, even if today's fine it feels like only a matter of time
I got hit with unauthorized login attempts on Rakuten today too and had to change my password — hackers can seriously drop dead
Well, it's basically like during the earthquake disaster, no? Cash is king when systems are down, and any real merchant will just tally it up on a calculator if they have to.
Oh that's already a lock
At minimum a formal warning notice will be issued
A business suspension order probably not yet, but still
Of course
Not being able to withdraw "your own money" that you deposited strikes at the very core of trust in financial institutions…
In a way that's an even deeper problem than a bank run itself
Maybe Takaichi should hold a press conference like Biden did, guaranteeing full deposit protection by the government
Though if a system that doesn't even work gets paraded in front of the cameras while old folks form a huge line outside the credit union, that'll just spread more panic
Well, holding a press conference like that would backfire — tellers and ATMs would just get swamped and shut down by a flood of elderly customers instead.
Non-interest-bearing deposit accounts are already fully protected
The 10 million yen cap applies to interest-bearing ordinary accounts
Interest up to that point is also covered
Anything beyond that gets paid out proportionally from the failed institution's remaining assets
The problem is the DATA proving you had that money disappears
How do you even prove your deposit balance then?
Well, if you've got your passbook, that should work out okay. Can't speak for people using those passbook-less accounts that skip the physical record, though.
Guess you've just got to keep your passbook updated with entries — though that's not foolproof either since card withdrawals can happen after the last recorded entry
Either way, if it ever gets to that point, the country's done for, and the megabanks will probably get hit next too
Could this end up like that GMO case where money just gets wiped out on its own?
If the balance hits zero and there's no backup,
is recovery just based on whatever you claim?
My wallet "remembers" it had 100 million yen in it
Unless it's an inside job, that seems extremely unlikely
Probably just a plain equipment failure, or maybe someone tinkered with something and broke it
https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/dd3a9a6816b1c3ca12f48c6468a4b2fdb0a4a98a
"Just a malfunction," lol
Glad it's that for now, but if it sparks a bank run, that's a whole different problem
Nobody's buying that
That side of things sounds scarier, honestly,
but businesses that settle their cash after banks/credit unions close for the day
usually just drop it in the night deposit box as normal
there's no strict requirement to deposit at the counter by 3 PM
Ah I see
So if you use a worm to cause a hardware comms outage and drag it out, cash just piles up around town
If it turned into a street battle like something out of the Continental Op detective stories, that'd honestly be fun 😀
Background and Key Points of This Story
The Shinkin Shared Data Center is the core backbone system used jointly by nearly every credit union nationwide, which is why a failure on the western Japan side, as in this case, brings tellers and ATMs to a halt across such a wide area all at once. The thread’s disagreement centered on the fact that the cause was initially unknown — with unauthorized access floated as a possibility — before later being explained as “equipment failure.” Some were relieved by that explanation, while others questioned how such a simple cause could cause such a prolonged outage, pointing to apparent gaps in system redundancy. Under Japan’s deposit insurance system, non-interest-bearing deposits used for settlement are fully protected, while ordinary interest-bearing deposits are protected only up to a principal of 10 million yen plus accrued interest; amounts beyond that are repaid proportionally from the failed institution’s remaining assets. Since this incident was a system outage rather than an institutional failure, the insurance scheme doesn’t directly apply here — but anxiety over a potential bank run still led the thread to bring up the topic.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (News Speed+) thread “System outage hits 128 credit unions across Tokai and points west — teller transactions and ATMs unavailable, unauthorized access unclear, no timeline for restoration.”
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