Online Banking Freezes at Nonghyup

The online and smartphone banking services of Nonghyup Bank were paralyzed for some 3.3 hours on Wednesday.

Although the bank has previously suffered computer network failures believed to result from hacking from the North, a bank spokesman said this was simply due to a technical hitch.

"From 6:22 p.m., online and smartphone banking systems partially froze, inconveniencing our customers," the spokesman said.

Nonghyup Bank explained that one of its two database servers responsible for online banking went out of order.

An official at the Financial Supervisory Service said that its own investigation also found that there was no hacking attempt from outside.