KUALA LUMPUR: MCA president Datuk Seri Dr Wee Ka Siong wants Bank Negara Malaysia to review the current e-banking downtime limits for financial institutions, which allow for up to four hours of unplanned downtime annually and a maximum of 120 minutes per incident.

In a posting on TikTok, he described the current limits as too lenient.

"BNM should tighten these limits so that all banks prioritise compliance for the benefit of users.

"I believe the downtime period needs to be reduced to force banks to invest more in strengthening online service systems, as the public increasingly relies on e-payments," he said, adding that unplanned disruptions could cause chaos among users.

Yesterday, BNM fined Malayan Banking Bhd for RM4.3 million and another bank for RM760,00 for e-banking service outages.

BNM said the banks' non-compliance was due to lapses in the execution of its response and recovery processes, which delayed the restoration of disrupted systems and impacted the availability of essential banking services for its customers and counterparties.

It said financial institutions must ensure their relevant critical systems are designed for high availability, specifically cumulative unplanned downtime that affects the user interface, which must not be more than four hours on a rolling 12-month basis; and maximum tolerable downtime of 120 minutes per incident.

Both banks have paid their fines.

Wee said fines represent only 0.03 per cent and 0.01 per cent, respectively, of their pre-tax profits in 2023.

"This percentage is far smaller compared to the merchant fees charged to traders by these banks, which justifies BNM investigating this matter.

"It is time for banks to lower electronic payment machines or merchant fees since online payments are now widely used," he said, adding that otherwise, it will burden both users and traders.

Wee said banks have made enough profit, therefore they should help alleviate the public's burden.

He also commended BNM's actions as a positive start.

"This is a commendable action, certainly supported by users. Congratulations again to BNM for the decisive action taken," he said.

https://www.nst.com.my/news/nation/2024/08/1092140/wee-bnm-must-review-downtime-limits-financial-institutions