How Automation and AI Agents Saved Our Banking Operations During a 5-Days Internet Downtime

Under normal circumstances, this would have meant transaction failures, delayed end-of-day (EOD) processes, and a complete standstill in banking operations. But this time was different — automation and AI saved the day.

A few months before the incident, I had started developing an internal Risk Register Tool — a smart system designed to log, track, and manage operational risks in real time.

While testing it, I logged a possible scenario:

“What if we face a total internet outage or can’t access the office for days?”

The AI agent built into the system analyzed this and immediately suggested:

“Create a backup plan for offline continuity.”

That single suggestion became the seed for a larger automation initiative — one that would later become the backbone of our operations during the crisis.

To prepare for future disruptions, I focused on automating two critical areas that usually depend on manual or online processes:

EOD processing is one of the most crucial daily banking tasks. It transitions all systems to the next business day, ensuring accurate balances and transaction continuity.

Using cron jobs, I automated the entire EOD workflow — including:

• Database backups on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
• Secure transfer of backups to our Disaster Recovery (DR) site hosted on Windows Server
• Automated execution of Core Banking System (CBS) EOD
• Running General Ledger (GL) EOD
• Generating automated reports for OBIEE dashboards

This setup ensured that even without internet connectivity, all processes could continue within the local intranet and be synced with the DR site later when the network was restored.

Next, I built an AI-powered monitoring agent to handle issues across digital banking channels like mobile apps, USSD, and internet banking.

Here’s what it did:

• Automatically detected failed transactions and traced the root cause.
• If the issue was internal, it retried the transaction up to three times.
• For persistent failures, it documented the incident, created a PDF report, and stored it for review once systems were back online.
• If a transaction kept failing due to external communication breakdowns, the agent automatically refunded the customer’s account after four consecutive failures (within 20-minute intervals).

During the outage, this AI-driven workflow became the only reliable mechanism to manage digital transactions. Out of all failures, only 30% were caused by internal system errors — the rest resulted from network disruptions between banks and mobile network operators.

Then came the real test — a nationwide internet shutdown that lasted five full days.

No one could access cloud platforms, remote dashboards, or online systems. But thanks to the automated infrastructure, our critical banking functions continued uninterrupted within the local environment.

• End-of-day processes completed successfully.
• Backups ran automatically.
• The AI agent monitored all transactions and documented any issues offline.

When connectivity was finally restored, the system synced everything seamlessly — no data loss, no corruption, and no pending transactions.

That experience changed the way I view technology. It proved that:

• Automation is not a luxury — it’s a necessity for business continuity.
• AI can turn reactive operations into proactive, self-healing systems.
• Offline capability is just as important as online efficiency.

For financial institutions, especially in developing countries, resilience is not built in data centers — it’s built in design thinking, foresight, and intelligent automation.

The five-day internet shutdown could have easily crippled our operations. Instead, it became a powerful demonstration of how AI and automation can safeguard financial systems during unexpected disruptions.

Automation didn’t just help us survive — it helped us stay fully operational when the rest of the country was offline.