India’s leading stock exchanges, NSE and BSE have reiterated that their operations have remained unaffected by the global outage of Microsoft systems, despite widespread disruptions reported by users worldwide.
A widespread Microsoft outage caused disruptions across global flights, banks, media outlets, and businesses. The widespread impact included users encountering the Blue Screen of Death error messages. The outage, reportedly caused by a new update from CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity software firm, particularly affected Windows-based desktops and laptops.
The disruptions persisted even after Microsoft acknowledged and began addressing issues affecting access to its Microsoft 365 apps and services.
In a joint statement, they said, “On July 19, 2024, there was a global outage of Microsoft Systems. This outage has been reported to have caused disruptions across various sectors globally.”
“In India, all Exchanges and Clearing Corporations functioned without any impact. Out of the 1400+ trading members ecosystem, there were 11 trading members who reported disruptions to their operations, which were either resolved during the day, or are being resolved,” it added.
“Overall, Exchanges & Clearing Corporations have not witnessed any significant impact to the trading and clearing activities in Indian securities market,” the release by all exchanges, also including NCDEX, Metropolitan Stock Exchange, MCX, said.
The Indian financial and payments systems remained largely unaffected during the widespread Microsoft services outage. While a number of banks and NBFCs encountered minor disruptions, approximately 10 institutions were affected, with resolutions either implemented or underway.
“Critical systems of most banks are not in cloud and further, only a few banks are using the CrowdStrike tool. Our assessment shows that only 10 banks and NBFCs had minor disruptions which have either been resolved or are being resolved,” RBI said in a statement.
HDFC Bank, India’s largest private sector lender, said that it remained unaffected by the global Microsoft outage. Similarly, officials from ICICI Bank and Axis Bank also reported that their systems were functioning normally and showed no signs of disruption from the outage.