KUALA LUMPUR – A sessions court here has found Maybank liable for failing to properly monitor a customer’s accounts, resulting in RM166,000 in unauthorised transactions.
Judge Maimoonah Aid awarded RM166,000 to Chan Yan Li after allowing her civil claim against the bank, and also ordered Maybank to pay RM50,000 in legal costs, FMT reported.
Chan filed the lawsuit in 2022 following a series of transfers from her loan account between June and July 2021. She has maintained two accounts with the bank since 2000: a housing loan account and a savings account.
In 2021, RM166,000 was moved from her loan account to her savings account without her receiving any SMS alerts or push notifications. The funds were subsequently transferred to unknown individuals in multiple transactions. Maybank argued that notifications had been sent and that the transactions were authorised.
Chan reported the incident to the police. The court was informed that three individuals connected to mule accounts had pleaded guilty to offences involving the concealment of property and possession of stolen items.
In her judgment, Maimoonah Aid noted discrepancies between telecommunications records and the transaction reports presented in court. She highlighted that no SMS alerts were sent for some transactions, several of which occurred in the early hours of the morning.
“The plaintiff (Chan) was not an active user of the Maybank2U (app), as she only used it to pay credit cards or remit money to her father-in-law. The defendant’s (Maybank) report stated that from June 28 to July 2, 2021 money was transferred out of the plaintiff’s account,” she said.
The judge also pointed out that the sudden surge of activity in Chan’s account during this period indicated suspicious transactions that should have prompted further investigation. She emphasised that a bank can be partly liable if it “shuts its eyes to an obvious fact of dishonesty.”
Lawyers K Revathi and K Gunalan represented Chan, while Izzat Zainal appeared for Maybank. – May 12, 2026