[Asia Economy Reporter Bu Aeri] It has been revealed that the number of users of K-Bank, which experienced an unprecedented outage crisis, has sharply declined.
According to data analysis firm WiseApp on the 24th, K-Bank's daily active users (DAU) stood at 356,057 as of the 22nd. This is a decrease of 94,188 users compared to 450,245 on the 16th, before the outage incident occurred.
The K-Bank mobile banking application (app) experienced connection errors starting around 8:30 PM on the 17th and was only restored to normal after 4 AM on the 18th. K-Bank dispatched staff to the Mokdong data center and its headquarters to take measures, but it took more than seven hours to fully recover.
K-Bank's DAU has been decreasing daily since the connection failure on the 17th. On weekdays, the numbers were 420,961 on the 18th, 391,918 on the 21st, and 356,057 on the 22nd. On the weekend days of the 19th and 20th, when usage typically declines compared to weekdays, the DAU was in the low 300,000s.
K-Bank's DAU, which was relatively small compared to competitors KakaoBank and Toss, has become even more negligible. KakaoBank's DAU as of the 22nd was 3,580,332, and Toss had 6,053,590. However, Toss is a single app that combines Toss Bank, Toss Pay, and Toss Securities.
On the 17th, users experienced inconvenience due to over 7 hours of access errors on the K Bank mobile banking app.
Due to the prolonged connection errors, users' sentiment toward K-Bank has rapidly cooled. As the app of an internet-only bank without physical branches experienced errors lasting several hours, some users expressed anxiety and said they would move their money to other banks.
The bank's inadequate response in the early stages of the error also fueled users' frustration. Despite the prolonged outage, there were criticisms about the lack of detailed notifications such as text messages. K-Bank stated that it posted a popup notice on the app immediately after the error occurred, but some users only became aware of the connection error through Upbit notices, a partner of K-Bank.
The outage crisis is a double blow to K-Bank, which is preparing for an IPO early next year. The market situation is already unfavorable, and as commercial banks accelerate digital transformation, questions are being raised about the innovativeness of internet-only banks.
However, K-Bank is making every effort to attract users through 'interest rate competitiveness.' On the 21st, K-Bank lowered the refinancing interest rate for apartment mortgage loans by 0.7 percentage points annually, the apartment mortgage loan interest rate by 0.2 percentage points, and the jeonse loan interest rate by 0.3 percentage points.
Regarding this, a K-Bank official said, "Customers are continuously flowing in due to the interest rate cuts," adding, "We are inspecting the entire system in light of this error incident and will strengthen measures to prevent recurrence."
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