KakaoBank, which promotes itself as an artificial intelligence (AI) bank, has belatedly been found to have experienced a series of delays in large transfers and errors in simple money transfers. As the use of internet-only banks grows amid the recent fallout from commercial banks' management of total household lending, the stability of transfer systems has become a concern.
According to the financial industry on the 15th, a person identified as A sought on the 10th to pay the balance on a newly purchased home using a deposit received from the landlord of the jeonse (a Korean lease system requiring a large lump-sum deposit instead of monthly rent) residence where A had been living. The landlord transferred more than 500 million won in two separate transactions. The first transaction was processed normally, but the second, made almost simultaneously, failed to go through. A, who was using a KakaoBank account, was left greatly flustered.
The transaction was canceled about an hour later due to a transfer error. The deposit was completed only after the landlord, upon confirming the failure, sent the money again. At the time, when the transfer was not completed at the bank the landlord used to send the money, the landlord inquired with KakaoBank, but the exact cause reportedly could not be found.
In the process, A failed to pay the balance on time and had to wait at the site along with moving company staff. A ultimately bore hundreds of thousands of won in costs, including standby fees and additional work charges, but received no compensation for the damages.
Another case confirmed by The Seoul Economic Daily also revealed transfer anomalies. A person identified as B sent money to an acquaintance last month via KakaoTalk simple transfer, but the actual transfer was not completed. The money was withdrawn from the sender's account but was not deposited to the recipient, leaving the funds in a state resembling their disappearance from the electronic records for about a day. "My friend said he did not receive the money, so I sent the same amount again," B explained. "The next day, just as I was about to inquire with the customer center, the first transfer amount was returned to my account."
Another user, identified as C, experienced a situation in which the completion of a transfer could not be confirmed after sending money through KakaoBank. "Since last week's transfer, the transaction completion notification that usually comes did not arrive, so I had to check again whether the transfer had been carried out normally," C said. A banking industry official said, "It is not common for only one of transfers made at the same time to not be reflected in the electronic system, or for a transaction to remain incomplete after only the withdrawal has occurred."
KakaoBank is Korea's largest internet-only bank, with 27.27 million customers as of the end of the first quarter this year. A KakaoBank official explained, "It is understood that during the interbank transaction process, the two transactions were processed as a duplicate transfer, so the deposit was not reflected normally," adding, "Regarding the transfer notification delays, we have completed measures such as expanding lines."
