THE Kuala Lumpur Sessions Court ordered Maybank to compensate a woman RM166,000 after it failed to stop suspicious online banking transactions that emptied money from her account.
Judge Maimoonah Aid allowed the civil claim filed by Chan Yan Li against the bank and ordered Maybank to pay damages of RM166,000 and RM15,000 costs.
Yan Li filed the suit in 2022 after a total of RM166,000 was transferred out of her account through several transactions between June and July 2021 without her permission.
According to the facts of the case, Chan had two accounts with Maybank since 2000, namely a housing loan account and a savings account.
The money was first withdrawn from her housing loan account and transferred into her savings account before being sent in stages to several third-party bank accounts between June 26 and July 2, 2021.
Chan said she did not receive any SMS or app notification regarding the transaction.
However, the bank insisted that the notification had been sent and the transaction was authorised.
The plaintiff only realised the transactions had taken place on July 15, the same year, when she checked her Maybank2u account. She later lodged a police report.
The bank also argued that there was no problem with its Maybank2u system and suggested the plaintiff's banking details could have been exposed due to her own negligence.
In her judgment, Judge Maimoonah said there were discrepancies between the telecommunications company's records and the transaction reports submitted to the court.
She also found that no SMS notifications were sent for certain transactions, including transactions that occurred early in the morning.
“The plaintiff is not an active user of the Maybank2U application because she only uses the application to pay her credit card or transfer money to her father-in-law,” she said.
According to her, Maybank’s own report showed that money was transferred out of the plaintiff’s account between June 28 and July 2, 2021.
The judge also pointed to inconsistencies between the TAC records produced by the bank and phone records from Digi shown during the trial.
The court found that the pattern of transactions was unusual and should have raised suspicion at the bank.
“The bank could be partly held liable if it turned a blind eye to the obvious facts of dishonesty,” she said.
The court also noted that several mule account holders connected to the transfers had pleaded guilty in separate criminal cases.
Lawyers K Revathi and K Gunalan represented Chan, while Izzat Zainal represented Maybank. – May 12, 2026
