It was a “generic switch” which caused Standard Bank’s system to crash early on Saturday morning, leaving thousands of its customers unable to pay for fuel pumped into their tanks or groceries scanned at supermarket pay points.

“We want to take ownership of what happened and express our heartfelt and most sincere apology for the inconvenience and indignity we caused our clients,” said CEO Lungisa Fuzile at a hastily convened virtual media briefing on Tuesday. 

The failure of that key switch component meant all transactions, including those at ATMs, failed from about 7.30am until early afternoon, the busiest shopping hours of the week...