Shinhan Bank headquarters in central Seoul (Shinhan Bank)

Shinhan Bank encountered a currency exchange system error around 9:30 a.m. on Thursday.

As a result, currency-related services, including overseas remittances, were temporarily suspended for approximately 2 1/2 hours until the system was restored at around noon.

"We made sure that for clients who requested overseas remittances during the service outage, we apply the exchange rate at the time of their request to minimize any potential customer losses from exchange rate fluctuations," a Shinhan Bank official said.

The Shinhan Bank official also stressed the lender’s efforts preventing any future service outages.

The bank could take this measure for its clients because the process of overseas remittances is different from that of domestic remittances, which take place instantly.

For overseas remittances, the bank accepts requests throughout the day, and the actual transfer of funds occurs at a later time. During the transfer, the applicable exchange rate is determined based on the request time, considering that rates may vary throughout the day.

The incident was promptly reported to the Financial Supervisory Service on Thursday, as lenders are obligated to report incidents involving consumer losses or service outages lasting more than 10 minutes.

By Song Seung-hyun (ssh@heraldcorp.com)