DIGITAL BANKING AS CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE

Maybank stated on its website that the service disruption would last until 8.00 a.m., but it is now already 10.20 a.m. Maybank also mentioned that balance checking (limited view) was still available, yet the app shuts down almost immediately upon entry.

I had a very urgent matter and needed to carry out an important transaction about an hour ago, and I am sure many other account holders are facing the same situation. Receivers are already making noise because payments and transfers cannot be completed. In the end, I have no choice but to do things manually, and the nearest Maybank branch is about 3 km away which I had to walk (taking a bus would be too tricky) as my car is used by my son.

I believe the estimated recovery time should have been communicated more accurately instead of issuing what appears to be a generic copy-and-paste explanation. Please understand that this is a serious matter affecting many users, businesses, commitments, and urgent transactions.

Maybank has one of the most user-friendly and technologically advanced banking apps in Malaysia, which is why expectations are naturally high. A few months ago, I even advised another bank that pending maintenance, the must ensure proper backup systems not only for ATMs, but also for their banking applications and digital infrastructure themselves. I suppose it's written in your banking manual as well.

System maintenance and disruptions can happen, but timely updates, transparent communication, and reliable fallback systems are equally important in maintaining public confidence and trust. The response and my interaction :

My proposal :

DIGITAL BANKING AS CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE

My experience interacting with a banking service disruption has reinforced a some observations I’ve consistently raised in my advisory work with other financial institutions, particularly around ICT resilience, application architecture, and operational risk management. I've been involved in gap analysis, risk assessments, and process improvement reviews for various financial and banking-related systems. A few key reflections stand out: Some banks now enforce a strict “one device, one account” policy, limiting access to a registered mobile device and removing or restricting web-based access. While I fully understand the rationale, strengthening security against fraud, bribery, money laundering, and scam risks, it raises a practical question: Why do other banks maintain both mobile app and web access concurrently, yet still achieve strong security controls through multi-factor authentication, device binding, and behavioural monitoring? This becomes a balance between security hardening and operational accessibility, especially during service disruption scenarios. 1) Common technical challenges in banking applications Issues often arise from: - Tight coupling between frontend apps and backend services - Lack of proper failover or redundancy layers - Insufficient separation between production and maintenance environments - Rapid deployment cycles without robust rollback mechanisms These are typically solvable through stronger DevOps practices, microservices segregation, and better release governance. 2) Business continuity and backup readiness I emphasised to one bank that backup systems must extend beyond ATMs. They must also include digital banking applications, web banking platforms, payment gateways and authentication services True resilience is not just physical redundancy, it is digital continuity. 3) Maintenance and upgrade strategy in banking apps Best practice in many institutions is to avoid direct disruption of the live system by: - Running parallel environments (production vs staging) - Performing upgrades in mirrored systems - Gradually rolling out updates (blue-green deployment or canary releases) In contrast, when upgrades are performed directly on the same production instance without a parallel fallback layer, users experience full-service interruption during maintenance windows. 4) Universal View Digital banking has evolved into a critical infrastructure service. As such, expectations around uptime, transparency, and fail-safe design are now similar to utilities. Even short disruptions have immediate real-world financial impact on individuals and businesses. The key challenge moving forward is not only security vs convenience, but also resilience vs transformation speed and how well institutions balance both without compromising trust.

End users rarely see the complexity behind these systems but they always feel the impact when something breaks.