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Toss Bank glitch offers yen at half price, triggers gov't inspection
Toss Bank headquarters in Gangnam District, Seoul / Newsis
By Jun Ji-hye
A system error at Toss Bank briefly caused the Japanese yen to be offered at about half of its correct exchange rate, prompting the financial watchdog to launch an on-site inspection, the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) said Wednesday.
The malfunction happened in the internet-only bank’s mobile app for about seven minutes, from 7:29 p.m. to 7:36 p.m. Tuesday. During that time, the app displayed an exchange rate of about 472 won per 100 yen, even though the market rate was around 934 won.
Some users were reportedly able to purchase yen during the glitch at about half price, either through preset automatic buy orders or after logging in following alerts about the sudden price drop.
The bank is believed to be estimating potential losses from the incident at about 10 billion won ($6.8 million).
“We had been carrying out inspections and improvement work to maintain stable operations of the foreign exchange system when the incident occurred. During that process, however, an unintended impact led to the yen exchange rate being displayed at a level that differed from the normal benchmark," a Toss Bank official said.
The bank said that it detected the anomaly through its internal abnormal exchange rate alert system, took immediate action and normalized the exchange rate quotation system about seven minutes after the issue arose.
The bank added that yen exchange transactions completed during the period would be subject to correction or cancellation in accordance with the Electronic Financial Transactions Act and its standard terms for electronic financial transactions.
It vowed to work to minimize any inconvenience to customers during the process.
“We will reinforce system inspection procedures and comprehensively improve the exchange rate quotation process to prevent similar cases from recurring," the official added.
Authorities are now reviewing the scale of the affected transactions.
“What form of compensation may be offered to customers will be decided after the review,” an FSS official said.
Similar incidents have also occurred in the past. In February last year, Hana Bank mistakenly posted the Vietnamese dong exchange rate at about one-tenth of its actual value.
Transactions made during that error were later canceled under provisions of the Electronic Financial Transactions Act that allow corrections for system mistakes.
In September 2022, the won-dollar exchange rate was incorrectly displayed at around 1,290 won at Toss Securities for about 25 minutes when the market rate had already climbed above 1,440 won. Although some users made profits from the discrepancy, the company did not attempt to recover those gains.