Bank Negara Fines Maybank RM4.3 Mil, CIMB RM760K
Both of the banks were imposed administrative monetary penalty by Bank Negara (BNM) resulting in fines. The penalties were for allowing their banking services to be unavailable over the specified time.
Malayan Banking Bhd was fined RM4,320,000. Meanwhile, CIMB Group Holdings Bhd was imposed a RM760,000 fine.
These penalties were for non-compliance with the Financial Services Act 2013 (FSA) and Islamic Financial Services Act 2013 (IFSA).
Para 10.32 of the RMiT Policy Document, FSA And IFSA
According to BNM, financial institutions must ensure their relevant critical systems are designed for high availability under this Act, specifically
(a) cumulative unplanned downtime that affects user interface must not be more than four hours on a rolling 12-month basis; and
(b) maximum tolerable downtime of 120 minutes per incident.
Maybank’s multiple unplanned downtime
BNM stated that “between 1 June 2023 and 31 May 2024, Maybank’s Regional Mobile Banking Platform (RMBP) and MAE applications experienced multiple unplanned downtime”.
The statement added that this caused prolonged disruptions in several banking services interface with customers and counterparties.
CIMB’s lapses in execution of response and recovery
As for CIMB, BNM stated that “it was found that CIMB’s non-compliance resulted from lapses in the execution of its response and recovery process to restore the disrupted systems promptly”. This had impacted the availability of essential banking services for its customers and counterparties.
Banks expected to maintain high level of technology resilience
In announcing these fines, BNM stated that all financial institutions are expected to maintain a high level of their technology resilience against operational disruptions. This is to ensure the continuous availability of essential financial services.
The central bank also added that it will not not hesitate to take appropriate supervisory and enforcement actions when financial institutions fall short of regulatory expectations.
