Overview
Malaysia’s banking sector is among the most developed in Southeast Asia and is dominated by a small number of large domestic banking groups operating alongside foreign and Islamic banks under the supervision of Bank Negara Malaysia, the central bank. The five institutions examined here — CIMB, Hong Leong Bank, Maybank, Public Bank and RHB — are among the country’s leading banking groups and together account for a substantial share of domestic lending, deposits and retail activity.
The banking sector is highly competitive, with strong adoption of digital banking and Islamic finance in which Malaysia is a recognised global centre. This gives plenty of options for retail banking consumers to shop for the best service and products.
Against this backdrop, customer satisfaction is increasingly shaped in online and social channels, where financial results, product launches, community initiatives and, in particular, fraud and legal matters are discussed and amplified. The analysis that follows measures how these five banks are perceived across those channels.
This report serves as a guide for retail consumers searching information related to services, products, loans and ultimately to decide best bank should they go for.
What do we measure?
The Customer Satisfaction Index is the central measure used throughout this analysis. It is calculated as positive mentions divided by the sum of positive and negative mentions, expressed as a percentage, with neutral mentions excluded. This exclusion has a material effect on the results: a bank with a high proportion of neutral coverage can record a lower score without attracting any additional criticism.
Our Approach
We analyzed social media and online media data related to each bank in Malaysia in the past 90 days to conduct sentiment analysis and identify recurring trends based on customer touchpoints, products, and corporate related news. Our analysis is peer-reviewed internally, and data cleaning was conducted to remove any errors, spam or noise that are not related to the banking industry.
SECTION 01
Executive Summary
The online conversation across the five banks is broadly positive. All five record a Satisfaction Index above 77 percent, the group average is 82.2 percent, and the full range spans just under nine points, from Public Bank at 77.5 percent to Hong Leong Bank at 86.7 percent. No bank in the group is in reputational difficulty, and none holds a decisive lead.
The aggregate figures combine two distinct profiles. Maybank and CIMB are high-volume brands, with 2,991 and 2,590 mentions respectively, and their scores reflect a large, continuous stream of coverage. Hong Leong Bank records the highest satisfaction in the group on only 344 mentions. The association between lower volume and higher satisfaction recurs across the analysis.
Reach is heavily concentrated. Of the 215 million in combined reach across eight platforms, RHB accounts for 162.2 million, or roughly three-quarters of the total. The combined figure is therefore driven almost entirely by RHB and should be read as a measure of concentration rather than of even coverage. Public Bank’s position at the foot of the satisfaction table reflects diluted, incidental coverage rather than hostility, as the following sections set out.
SECTION 02
Topic Satisfaction Matrix
The banks score similarly in the categories they control directly and diverge in those they do not. Corporate and financial coverage ranges from 88 to 95 percent across the group, and community and CSR coverage from 87.5 to 100 percent. Legal & Compliance and Security & Fraud are the weakest categories for every bank, reflecting the reach and impact of court and fraud-related stories.
Several cells in the weaker categories rest on very small samples and should be treated with caution. Hong Leong Bank’s 100 percent on Legal & Compliance and Public Bank’s 0 percent on the same category are both based on minimal coverage and do not indicate genuine strength or weakness. The reliable low scores are those supported by sufficient volume: CIMB at 12.1 and 10.5 percent on Legal & Compliance and Security & Fraud, and Maybank at 19.6 and 22.4 percent. Digital & Products shows the clearest separation, with RHB at 98.1 percent and Hong Leong Bank at 87.1 percent ahead of Maybank at 69.7 percent and Public Bank at 66.7 percent. Unlike the shared weakness in compliance and security, this gap is a genuine point of differentiation.
SECTION 03
Customer Satisfaction Index Ranking
Ranked from highest to lowest, the banks are Hong Leong Bank at 86.7 percent, Maybank at 82.9 percent, CIMB at 82.7 percent, RHB at 81.1 percent, and Public Bank at 77.5 percent. The top four are separated by less than six points, with Maybank and CIMB effectively level. Public Bank is the only clear outlier, trailing RHB by under four points. The margins are narrow enough that a single significant story could change the order.
The ranking also shows an inverse relationship between mention volume and satisfaction. Hong Leong Bank leads the group on the lowest volume, while Maybank and CIMB, with seven to nine times that volume, score four to six points lower. A higher share of voice is associated with proportionally greater negative-coded exposure, so the table reflects the level of public exposure as much as the balance of opinion.
SECTION 04
Sentiment Composition
The differences between the banks lie mainly in the split between positive and neutral coverage rather than in negative coverage. Negative share is consistent across the group, ranging from 9.3 percent for Hong Leong Bank to 12.9 percent for Public Bank, a spread of just over three points. No bank attracts materially more criticism than the others.
The variation comes from how the remaining coverage divides. Hong Leong Bank records 60.5 percent positive coverage, while Public Bank carries a 42.5 percent neutral share, the highest in the group. Because the Satisfaction Index excludes neutral mentions, Public Bank receives no benefit from this coverage, and its lower score reflects that exclusion rather than negative sentiment. Its issue is therefore one of coverage classification and visibility rather than sentiment, a distinction that should inform how it responds.
SECTION 05
Volume & Reach Comparison
Mention volume and reach are largely independent. By volume, the order is Maybank at 2,991, CIMB at 2,590, RHB at 1,370, Public Bank at 951, and Hong Leong Bank at 344. By reach, the order changes substantially: RHB’s 162.2 million is around five times Maybank’s 31.5 million, eleven times CIMB’s 14.4 million, and more than forty times the figures for Public Bank (4.0 million) and Hong Leong Bank (2.9 million).
Reach per mention clarifies the difference. RHB generates roughly 118,000 in reach per mention, compared with approximately 10,500 for Maybank, 8,400 for Hong Leong Bank, 5,600 for CIMB, and 4,200 for Public Bank. RHB’s reach is therefore driven by a small number of widely syndicated stories rather than by breadth of coverage, while Maybank and CIMB maintain high-volume, everyday coverage with limited amplification per item. Reach and volume should be reported separately, as combining them would misstate which bank leads day-to-day conversation.
SECTION 06
Top Positive Themes by Bank
The coverage driving satisfaction falls into three areas. The first is financial performance: Hong Leong Bank’s RM1.03 billion third-quarter profit, Maybank’s RM2.48 billion first-quarter result, Public Bank’s RM1.75 billion, and RHB’s RM857 million core profit, up 14 percent year on year. The second is recognition and Islamic-finance credibility, including CIMB’s two Islamic banking awards and Maybank’s Global Islamic Bank of the Year award. The third combines community activity and product launches: Maybank’s RM29.41 billion mobilised for social impact, RHB’s myRuma renovation ecosystem, Hong Leong Bank’s NextGen Wealth Academy and RM1.55 million in donations, and CIMB’s “Moving You Forward” campaign, TNG eWallet BizCash, and CIMB@Work launch.
Anti-scam activity is notable because it appears as a positive theme despite fraud being the sector’s largest source of negative coverage. Public Bank’s Scam Rangers partnership with the police and RHB’s Bank Heroes programme, credited with preventing RM139 million in scams, both contribute to satisfaction. Banks that address prevention publicly are able to treat the fraud issue as a source of credibility rather than solely as a liability.
SECTION 07
Top Negative Issues by Bank
The negative coverage falls into three categories of responsibility. The first is confirmed operational fault, where a court found the bank liable: Maybank’s RM166,000 fraud payout and CIMB’s RM310,000 payout to a scam victim. The second is association without established fault, where a third party misused an account or a branch was named: Hong Leong Bank’s link to a RM41,000 scam, Maybank’s third-party misuse cases, and RHB’s appearance in a money-laundering charge sheet. The third is external or product-level issues: CIMB’s Bersatu account-freeze case, coverage of the Teh family’s RM1.2 billion divestment from Public Bank, and RHB’s RM20 multi-currency card fee and DuitNow QR feature gap.
Reach tends to be highest on the items banks control least. CIMB’s Bersatu case, which is politically driven and largely outside the bank’s control, drew approximately 1.8 times the average reach. Fraud and legal matters recur across every bank, consistent with the topic matrix: the sector’s reputational exposure is concentrated in the two areas it is least able to manage directly.
SECTION 08
Risk Comparison
The critical tier contains two types of exposure: court-confirmed liability and high-reach or politically driven stories. Maybank’s RM166,000 ruling and CIMB’s Bersatu case, the latter carrying around 210,000 in reach, sit alongside RHB’s ownership-structure chatter and RM20 card-fee backlash. Maybank appears twice at this level, for the liability ruling and for its 19.6 percent Legal & Compliance score, identifying it as the most legally exposed brand at scale. Public Bank’s critical-tier item is incidental legal and political mentions rather than misconduct, again indicating that its principal issue is coverage classification.
The high tier is a monitoring list: Public Bank’s Security & Fraud score of 9.5 percent, CIMB’s RM310,000 payout, RHB’s DuitNow QR gap and money-laundering association, Hong Leong Bank’s scam-related litigation, and Maybank’s executive-pay scrutiny. The separation between the two tiers distinguishes confirmed fault from association in another party’s story. These require different resp
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These require different responses, remediation in the first case and clarification in the second, and should not be treated together
SECTION 09
Cross-Bank Takeaways
Four conclusions apply at the sector level. First, legal and fraud coverage is a shared industry issue rather than a brand-specific one. Once small-sample results are excluded, every bank scores weakly on compliance and security, which suggests that coordinated response templates would be more effective than separate approaches for each bank. Second, scale does not improve satisfaction. Hong Leong Bank records 86.7 percent on 344 mentions, while Maybank and CIMB carry seven to nine times the volume and score four to six points lower, indicating that a greater share of voice brings proportionally greater negative-coded exposure.
Third, reach concentration warrants a separate metric. RHB’s 162.2 million reach on a mid-range mention count equates to roughly 118,000 per mention, indicating that a small number of syndicated stories account for most of its reach; reporting reach per mention alongside totals prevents this being read as broad visibility. Fourth, a high neutral share is a data-quality indicator rather than a risk. Public Bank’s 12.9 percent negative share is in line with its peers, but a 42.5 percent neutral share reduces its index to 77.5 percent, so reclassifying incidental mentions would raise its score without any change in sentiment. Taken together, these points indicate that the ranking is shaped by measurement factors, namely volume, reach, and the treatment of neutral coverage, as much as by public opinion, and should be interpreted accordingly.
SECTION 10
Bank Deep Dives
CIMB is stable but exposed on reach. Its 82.7 percent satisfaction, across 2,590 mentions and 14.4 million in reach, is supported by a 53.4 percent positive base built on campaign and product activity: the “Moving You Forward” campaign, TNG eWallet BizCash and ASB financing, the CIMB@Work salary account, and two Islamic banking awards. Its negative coverage has two components: a genuine operational issue in the court-ordered RM310,000 scam payout, and a largely external one in the Bersatu account-freeze case, which is politically driven and amplified to around 1.8 times average reach. The two should be assessed separately to avoid overstating CIMB’s exposure.
Hong Leong Bank has the strongest profile in the group, with the highest satisfaction at 86.7 percent, the highest positive share at 60.5 percent, the lowest negative share at 9.3 percent, and limited third-party exposure. Its main constraint is sample size: on 344 mentions, individual incidents affect its percentages more than they would for higher-volume banks, so the score is strong but less stable. Maybank, at 82.9 percent, is well positioned at the largest scale in the group, supported by a RM2.48 billion quarterly result and its Global Islamic Bank of the Year award. At 2,991 mentions, the main risk is conflation, specifically distinguishing its RM166,000 liability from third-party misuse cases; its two critical-tier flags confirm that legal exposure is its primary concern.
Public Bank has the lowest headline satisfaction at 77.5 percent, but its underlying sentiment is in line with its peers. With a 12.9 percent negative share and a 42.5 percent neutral share, its score reflects coverage classification rather than criticism. Its most effective action is to separate incidental and political mentions, such as the Teh family divestment and routine market commentary, from coverage it owns directly; its 9.5 percent Security & Fraud score is the main substantive item to monitor. RHB, at 81.1 percent, is well positioned, with a reach figure more than ten times that of any peer, driven by a small number of widely syndicated stories rather than by volume. Its priority is closing specific friction points, the RM20 multi-currency card fee and the DuitNow QR receiving gap, rather than crisis management; its myRuma ecosystem and Bank Heroes programme, credited with preventing RM139 million in scams, are its main satisfaction drivers.
CIMB's position is solid but reach-vulnerable. It posts an 82.7% Customer Satisfaction Index across 2,590 mentions and 14.4M in reach — one of the higher volumes in this comparison — with a positive base (53.4%) anchored by strong campaign and product momentum.
- "Moving You Forward" ASEAN brand campaign
- TNG eWallet BizCash & ASB financing
- CIMB@Work salary account launch
- Two Islamic banking award wins
- Bersatu account-freeze case — political, largely outside CIMB's control, amplified to ~1.8x average reach
- Court-ordered RM310K payout to a scam victim — a genuine operational-risk gap
- Legal & Compliance (12.1%) and Security & Fraud (10.5%) remain the weakest categories, as with every bank in this set
Takeaway: the Bersatu story is worth tracking separately from CIMB-caused issues — conflating the two would overstate the bank's genuine operational exposure relative to peers.
Open full CIMB dashboard →
HLB posts the strongest Customer Satisfaction Index in this group (86.7%), built on the lowest mention volume (344) and the lowest negative share (9.3%) compared here. Quiet, low-controversy, and skewed positive (60.5%) — that combination is the clearest differentiator in the set.
- Solid Q3 FY2026 earnings — RM1.03B net profit
- HLB NextGen Wealth Academy
- Competitively-priced Tesla financing (from 0.88% p.a.)
- RM1.55M donated to welfare homes
- Handbag scam traced to an HLB account, and the related court case
- Fixed deposit rate comparisons against competitors
- Branch & weekend banking access gaps, plus SME financing awareness
Takeaway: strong narrative control and limited third-party exposure — but low volume means single incidents can swing percentages more than they would for higher-volume peers.
Open full HLB dashboard →
Maybank carries the highest mention volume in this comparison (2,991) and the second-highest reach (31.5M), landing a fundamentally strong 82.9% Customer Satisfaction Index on the back of robust financial results and standout Islamic finance recognition.
- Q1 FY2026 net profit of RM2.48B
- Maybank Islamic named Global Islamic Bank of the Year
- Malaysia's first tokenised sukuk
- RM1B SME Perkasa financing initiative; RM29.41B mobilised for social impact
- Court ruling holding Maybank liable for a RM166K fraud payout
- Recurring third-party account-misuse cases and unauthorised transaction complaints
- MAE app & QR payment friction, plus scrutiny of executive compensation
Takeaway: at this scale, the challenge is less about isolated incidents and more about distinguishing genuine fault from third-party cases that risk being conflated with Maybank's own conduct.
Open full Maybank dashboard →
Public Bank posts the lowest Customer Satisfaction Index in this comparison (77.5%), but the underlying picture is more reassuring than the headline suggests — negative share (12.9%) sits squarely in line with peers, and the gap is driven mainly by an unusually high neutral share (42.5%) from market and analyst commentary.
- Steady Q1 2026 results — RM1.75B net profit
- PB Scam Rangers × PDRM anti-scam initiative
- Smooth leadership transition (new non-independent director)
- "Buy" consensus from 16 of 21 research houses
- Teh family stake divestment (RM1.2B)
- ATM skimming case in Kuala Lumpur; money-laundering charge involving a customer's account
- Recurring digital banking friction on the PBe / MyPB app
Takeaway: disambiguating incidental third-party and political mentions from genuinely brand-owned stories is the single highest-leverage move to lift Public Bank's satisfaction score without any underlying change in sentiment.
Open full Public Bank dashboard →
RHB posts a fundamentally strong 81.1% Customer Satisfaction Index, with a mid-pack mention count (1,370) attached to by far the largest reach figure in this comparison — 162.2M, more than ten times any other bank, indicating a small number of highly-syndicated stories rather than broad-based volume.
- Core earnings growth — RM857M, +14% YoY
- myRuma digital renovation ecosystem launch
- BNM nod to begin insurance talks with Tokio Marine
- Bank Heroes initiative — RM139M in scams prevented
- RM20 multi-currency account card fee backlash
- DuitNow QR receiving gap vs. competitor apps; branch-only account-opening requirement
- RHB branch named in a money-laundering charge sheet
Takeaway: RHB's priority is less about crisis management and more about closing specific fee-transparency and feature-parity gaps that generate outsized, avoidable friction.
Open full RHB dashboard →Conclusion: What This Means for You
If you are looking for the “best” bank in Malaysia, the honest answer from this data is that there is no bad choice among the big five. All of them score above 77 percent on public confidence, and the amount of genuine criticism each attracts is almost identical — roughly one in ten mentions, whichever bank you pick. The differences in the rankings say more about how much each bank is talked about than how well it treats its customers.
That said, the data does point to a few practical distinctions. Hong Leong Bank enjoys the most positive online reputation, though it is also the least discussed, so its score rests on fewer voices. Maybank and CIMB are the most talked-about banks in the country, and both maintain strong confidence despite that constant scrutiny — a meaningful signal of resilience at scale. RHB and Hong Leong Bank stand out on digital banking and products, an area where Maybank and Public Bank trail noticeably, which matters if app experience and digital features are your priority. Public Bank’s lower headline score is largely a quirk of how neutral coverage is counted, not a sign of unhappy customers.
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About the Author
Shahid Shayaa is the founder and managing director of Berkshire Media. He specializes in data-driven communication strategies and insights using social data analytics, social media monitoring tools and machine learning text algorithms for more than 13 years. As an expert in the field of media monitoring, issue management and managing reputation risks for companies, he is involved in various research studies in this field and published various scientific papers on social data analytics, sentiment analysis and back-end algorithms on consumer sentiment, emotions and behaviour for marketers and campaign managers.
His research work and studies have been cited more than 467 times, inspiring new research in the field of social analytics in Malaysia. You may view his work here.
