New Delhi.  The technical problem of Microsoft Windows halted the pace of the world. Flights had to be cancelled in various countries due to glitches in Microsoft's operating system. Long queues were seen at various airports in America, Europe and Asia. Telecommunication was badly affected in Australia. Payment systems, websites and apps were affected in South Africa and New Zealand. At the same time, financial systems in India remained largely safe from Microsoft outage.

Some banks were affected, but everything is fine

On Friday evening, the Reserve Bank issued a statement saying that the large-scale disruption in Microsoft services has affected all sectors related to information technology. The Reserve Bank has reviewed the status of all the institutions under its regulation. The good thing is that most of the banks in India are not working on cloud systems and very few banks are using CrowdStrike software.

RBI has found that 10 banks or non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) have been affected only marginally. The Indian financial sector has remained largely unaffected by the chaos that has been created globally. RBI has also directed the agencies under its regulation to take precautionary measures.

SBI chairman said everything is fine with us

Overall, it said, the Indian financial sector remained untouched by the global outage in the RBI's area. Meanwhile, SBI Chairman Dinesh Kumar Khara told PTI that we (SBI) are all right. SBI is the country's largest lender and has about 25 per cent market share. National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) Chief Executive Dilip Asbe also said the country's payment systems, including the widely popular Unified Payments Interface, remained unaffected.

HDFC Bank, the largest private sector lender, also said it has not faced any impact of the outage. Ramesh Lakshminarayanan, group head of information technology at HDFC Bank, said our systems are unaffected by the global outage. There is no impact on banking operations.

There was no impact of the outage on Axis Bank

Officials at ICICI Bank and Axis Bank also said their systems were working properly and there was no impact of the outage.

The RBI said it has issued an advisory to all its regulated entities to remain vigilant and take necessary steps to ensure operational resilience and continuity.