How do you measure Maybank's efficiency?

Most of us will recognise this page. It's the login page to maybank2u.com. It belongs to Malaysia's supposedly premier bank: the biggest in the land, the pride of the country, etc, etc, etc.

Unfortunately, it's also one of the most inefficient. You know why? I'll give you two stories.

Last Tuesday, I tried to access my Maybank account through maybank2u.com. I was denied access. So I gave their customer service a tinkle. After pressing through a lot of keys, I finally got to talk to one of their customer service personnel.

A lady. She asked me lots of questions to verify my identity. Fair enough. I would have faulted the bank if they didn't. But I really didn't understand one of the questions. The lady asked me for my account number! I told her that I don't have my account number with me. "But you must have," she insisted, "when you opened the account you were given a passbook with the account number." Duh...as if I don't know. But does any sane person go about carrying his savings account passbook with him wherever he goes? I wanted to ask her whether she carried her passbook with her all the time but I kept my peace. I knew that she was only trying to do her job and her job required her to ask for customer verification. But that question sucked, okay? Never mind, I finally had access to my maybank2u login re-activated.

But my happiness was short-lived. I wanted to do an online bill payment. So after logging in, I went through all the menu choices, identified the payee and filled in the payment account. Darn....maybank2u now required me to request for a Transaction Authorisation Code (TAC). It's an additional level of online banking security and many banks have implemented this. It provides an additional authentication layer that is required when you perform specific transactions like payments or transfers to third-party accounts.

So I clicked on the "Request TAC" link on the page. I waited. After about two minutes when I did not receive the TAC on my mobile, I attempted another request but lo! I was told that I had already requested for one and I couldn't make a second one. Please wait, the message said.

So I waited again. Five minutes. maybank2u.com attempted to log me out. I said no. And I waited again. And again. Five minutes turned to 10 minutes, then 15 minutes. Finally, I gave up. That was Tuesday, remember? Today is Friday. I still haven't received the TAC on my mobile. That's super-(in)efficiency for you, from Malaysia's premier bank.

(Note: TAC would require a person to register his mobile number with the bank. I have, a long time ago.)