Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) imposed an Administrative Financial Penalty (AMP) of RM4.32 million on Maybank Bhd and Maybank Islamic Bhd and RM760,000 on CIMB Bank and CIMB Islamic Bank Bhd over prolonged disruptions in several banking services.
In a separate notice, the central bank reported that Maybank was subject to the full AMP penalty imposed on August 8 and CIMB cleared its penalty on August 12, 2024.
Among the most important offenses is unplanned downtime affecting users for no more than four hours in a 12-month period and the maximum duration is 120 minutes per incident.
Maybank's regional mobile banking platform and MAE application experienced several unplanned downtimes between 1 June 2023 and 31 May 2024, resulting in significant disruption to customer and counterparty interfaces.
In addition, BNM also stated that CIMB customers faced a prolonged service disruption on 8 to 9 April 2024 affecting e-banking channels, ATMs and both debit/credit card services. This disruption exceeds the threshold set by BNM.
In response, CIMB acknowledged the central bank's decision and expressed regret for the unplanned downtime that affected its customers and business partners on that date.
For now, banks together with companies need to take steps to ensure that downtime is minimized so as not to affect business affairs and strive to do better.
