Punjab Faces Online Payment Disruption Amid E-Pay Outage

A technical glitch in the E-Pay Punjab mobile app has disrupted payments for stamp duty, token tax, traffic fines, and vehicle registration since this morning. Users report difficulty locating the necessary payment codes due to the app malfunction.

The Punjab Information Technology Board, overseeing the E-Pay Punjab app, is experiencing technical issues. This has crippled the app, including its link to the driving license system. As a result, the traffic police suspended driving license services until the app is fixed.

There is no word on when this disruption will be resolved and online payments will work.

Last month, a major outage brought down thousands of Windows machines worldwide due to a faulty update from cybersecurity provider CrowdStrike. The disruption affected a multitude of devices in Pakistan too, according to the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA).

CrowdStrike faced a significant amount of backlash for it and later on, it was reported that the company offered its partner firms a $10 Uber Eats gift card as an apology. The apology email read as follows:

And for that, we send our heartfelt thanks and apologies for the inconvenience. To express our gratitude, your next cup of coffee or late night snack is on us!

However, many of CrowdStrike’s partners were not able to use this gift card due to its high usage rates.

We did send these to our teammates and partners who have been helping customers through this situation. Uber flagged it as fraud because of high usage rates.