If you live in Malaysia, this scenario probably feels familiar. A banking app suddenly stops working. A telco network collapses without warning. Payments fail, transactions freeze, calls drop, and data disappears… and then nothing. No clear updates. No immediate acknowledgment. Just silence.

This recurring pattern has become more than just an inconvenience. It is a troubling sign of how poorly many essential service providers communicate during crises.

Silence During Outages: A Pattern We Know Too Well

Downtime happens. Systems crash. Networks experience failures. That part is understandable. What is harder to accept is the lack of communication that follows.

Too often, banks and telcos in Malaysia either:​

Instead of clarity, users receive generic lines like "We're experiencing issues" or "We're working on it". Missing are the important details people desperately need: What exactly is affected? How long will it take to fix? Is my money safe? When can I get back online?

The Real-World Impact Isn't Just "Inconvenience"

These outages are not minor hiccups. For banks, downtime can mean:

For telcos, it goes beyond frustration — it can completely cut people off from communication. In an era where so much of life runs on digital access, losing connectivity can disrupt work, logistics, personal safety, and even emergency situations.

Things get worse when third-party providers fail, such as shared payment systems like PayNet and DuitNow. When they go down, banks lose visibility too. The chain reaction leaves everyone guessing, and the public ends up with even less information.

Customers Are Forced to Hunt for Answers

When users try to report problems, the experience often feels cold and procedural. Companies request personal details, ticket numbers, or case information. But the exchange usually remains private, with no broader public update to reassure everyone facing the same issue.

Meanwhile, people turn to social media for answers, tagging regulators, ministries, news outlets, and anyone who might respond. Instead of structured crisis communication, Malaysians end up crowdsourcing information from frustrated users experiencing the same outage.

Where Are the Regulators?

This isn't just a corporate communication problem — it is also a governance issue. Bodies like the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) are expected to address recurring transparency gaps. Yet many outages happen without coordinated oversight, visible accountability, or enforced communication standards.

People do not tag ministers and regulators on social platforms for fun. They do it because they feel unheard and unsupported.

Communication Is Not Optional — It Is a Responsibility

Outages will always happen. Even the best systems fail. But silence should not be acceptable anymore.

Service providers need to:

Being transparent does not weaken credibility. In fact, it strengthens trust. When companies communicate honestly, people are more forgiving. When they keep quiet, customers feel abandoned.

Malaysians Deserve Better

As we move into a more digital, cashless, and connected nation, reliability matters more than ever. But when reliability fails, communication must not.

Banks, telcos, and essential platforms must understand one thing clearly: customers are not asking for miracles. They are simply asking to be informed. When the lights go out, Malaysians deserve to know why — and when they will come back on.