Microsoft outage: AMFI website did not open for several hours

The official website of Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI) – amfiindia.com – did not open for several hours on Friday reportedly because of Microsoft outage.

The AMFI’s website carries data and updates relating to the mutual fund industry in India. It has separate corner for investors as well as for distributors.

The portal also carries important web links relevant for investors such as those of SEBI, SCORES, RBI, UIDAI, Income Tax, Mutual Fund Sahi Hai, NISM, e-Aadhaar and MF Utilities.

For the unversed, Windows users around the globe were stuck in ‘recovery’ stage after a massive outage. Crowdstrike has also acknowledged the issue in a recent support page where it states that the recent crashes on Windows are related to problems with the Falcon n sensor.

Reports suggest that the outage has affected airports, companies and government offices across the world.

One of the affected parties included the official website of Association of Mutual Funds in India. The website did not open for several hours during the daytime.

However, it started to open again in the evening.

“Typically, AMFI does the data uploading on Fridays after which the website may face trouble in opening. But since it did not open for several hours – it could be because of this outage,” said an AMFI official on condition of anonymity.

“Microsoft outage impacted the AMFI's website too, besides various online services and websites relying on Microsoft's infrastructure. However, it did not have much impact on the mutual fund users since AMFI does not process the mutual fund SIPs. Meanwhile, the portal is now working fine,” said chartered accountant Deepak Gupta, Founder Finvestment Pro.

What is AMFI?

The Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI) is a trade association for all SEBI-registered mutual fund houses in India.

It came into being on August 22, 1995, as a non-profit organisation. As of now, 44 fund houses registered with SEBI, are its members. In fact, most asset management companies (AMCs) in India are members of AMFI.

The organisation aims to develop the mutual funds market in India, by improving ethical and professional standards.

These are asset management companies which are registered with AMFI with assets under management of over ₹27 lakh crore.