Toss, one of South Korea's leading fintech platforms, suffered a system error that caused duplicate automatic transfers, affecting more than 15,000 customers. The total amount of duplicate withdrawals exceeded 2.1 billion won.
According to the financial industry on Tuesday, the error occurred in the Toss app's automatic transfer processing for about 40 minutes starting at 2:02 p.m. the previous day. During this period, customers' pre-set automatic transfers were executed twice, resulting in approximately 21,000 duplicate withdrawals.
The total damage amounted to approximately 2.14 billion won. Credit card payments, utility bill payments and even automatic transfers between customers' own accounts were affected. Immediately after confirming the error, Toss returned the duplicate withdrawals through an upfront payment process without requiring customers to file claims.
"A system error occurred during automatic transfer processing," a Toss official said. "We have completed measures to prevent recurrence and deeply apologize for the inconvenience caused to customers."
Recurring System Issues Across Affiliates Following Yen Exchange Incident
Industry observers say the incident is difficult to view as a one-off glitch, as system errors and financial accidents have continued this year across major affiliates including Toss, Toss Bank and Toss Securities.
In March, Toss Bank caused an error that applied the yen exchange rate at about half the actual level. The abnormal rate was applied for about seven minutes, during which approximately 40,000 customers exchanged more than 28 billion won worth of yen. The losses incurred from the incident are estimated at around 10 billion won.
Toss Securities also recently experienced an incident in which it incorrectly displayed listed companies' earnings information. Kolmar Korea's standalone earnings, rather than its consolidated results, were shown, leading some in the market to mistakenly believe earnings had plunged. A similar error involving the same company occurred last year, and earlier this year, incorrect high and low price alerts were sent for some stocks.
Financial authorities are raising the level of warnings amid the recurring incidents. They recently stated they would impose strict accountability for accidents stemming from inadequate IT system management and underinvestment in security.
In particular, observers note that fintech firms provide diverse financial functions including banking, securities and remittance services on a single platform, so even a single system failure can directly affect customers' assets and investment decisions.
