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Operational Resilience Framework: A Case Study of AmBank Malaysia
OR BB FI MY Gen-1

[OR] [AmB] [E3] [CBS] [1] [SuPS] Identify Severe but Plausible Scenarios

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Identifying severe but plausible scenarios is a core requirement of operational resilience, enabling AmBank to test whether its Retail & Digital Banking services can remain within defined impact tolerances under extreme yet realistic conditions.

These scenarios go beyond traditional risk assessments by focusing on service disruption outcomes, rather than isolated causes, and by considering compound events such as cyber incidents, technology failures, third-party outages, and people's unavailability occurring concurrently.

For CBS-1 Retail & Digital Banking, the scenarios below are designed to reflect high-impact disruptions that could materially affect customers, regulatory compliance, financial stability, and trust

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Moh Heng Goh
Operational Resilience Certified Planner-Specialist-Expert

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[OR] [AmB] [E3] [CBS] [1] [SuPS] Identify Severe but Plausible ScenariosIdentifying severe but plausible scenarios is a core requirement of operational resilience, enabling AmBank to test whether its Retail & Digital Banking services can remain within defined impact tolerances under extreme yet realistic conditions.

These scenarios go beyond traditional risk assessments by focusing on service disruption outcomes, rather than isolated causes, and by considering compound events such as cyber incidents, technology failures, third-party outages, and people's unavailability occurring concurrently.

For CBS-1 Retail & Digital Banking, the scenarios below are designed to reflect high-impact disruptions that could materially affect customers, regulatory compliance, financial stability, and trust.

Each scenario explicitly links to the integration of cyber and ICT risks, and demonstrates proactive risk management actions that evidence AmBank’s preparedness, response capability, and continuous improvement in line with modern operational resilience expectations.

Banner [Table] [OR] [E3] Identify Severe but Plausible Scenarios

Table P5: Identify Severe but Plausible Scenarios for CBS-1

Sub-CBS Code

Sub-CBS

Severe but Plausible Scenario

Impact / Effect

Proactive Risk Management Action

Link to Integration of Cyber and ICT Risks

1.1

Customer Onboarding & KYC

Core KYC systems unavailable for 48 hours due to a ransomware attack on the identity verification platform

Inability to onboard new customers; regulatory breach risk; revenue loss; customer dissatisfaction

Offline KYC fallback procedures; diversified third-party KYC providers; regular cyber incident simulations

Cyber attack on third-party SaaS; ICT resilience of identity platforms; data integrity and availability controls

1.2

Digital Banking Platform Provisioning

Major cloud service outage affecting mobile and internet banking platforms during peak hours

Customers unable to access accounts; reputational damage; increase in call centre volumes

Multi-region deployment; active-active architecture; periodic cloud exit and failover testing

Cloud ICT dependency; resilience of hosting infrastructure; integration with cyber resilience testing

1.3

Transaction Processing Services

The core banking transaction engine fails due to a corrupted database following failed patch deployment

Delayed or failed transactions; potential financial loss; regulatory reporting issues

Strict change management; pre-production testing; real-time transaction reconciliation

ICT change risk; cyber-related integrity risk; recovery point objectives (RPOs)

1.4

Digital Payments & Settlement

National payment network disruption, combined with internal gateway failure

Payment backlogs; missed settlements; merchant and customer impact

Alternate payment routing, liquidity buffers, and coordination with payment schemes

External ICT dependency: cyber-physical interconnection with payment ecosystems

1.5

Loan & Credit Product Management

Credit decisioning engine unavailable due to AI model service outage and data feed failure

Loan approvals delayed; SLA breaches; customer attrition

Manual credit assessment playbooks; model redundancy; data feed monitoring

ICT resilience of AI/ML platforms; data pipeline integrity and cyber monitoring

1.6

Deposit & Savings Product Management

Unauthorized configuration change causes incorrect interest calculations for 24 hours

Financial misstatements; customer complaints; remediation costs

Segregation of duties; automated controls validation; customer impact remediation plans

ICT configuration risk; cyber-related access control weaknesses

1.7

Customer Support & Service Resolution

Contact centre systems are unavailable due to a DDoS attack coinciding with a staff shortage

Customers unable to obtain support; escalation to regulators; reputational harm

Omnichannel support diversification; cyber DDoS protection; cross-trained staff

Cyber availability risk; ICT resilience of CRM and telephony systems

1.8

Compliance, Risk & Security Monitoring

Security monitoring tools fail during active cyber intrusion

Delayed detection; regulatory non-compliance; extended breach impact

Redundant SOC tooling; independent threat intelligence feeds; 24/7 escalation protocols

Cyber detection capability; ICT resilience of monitoring and logging infrastructure

1.9

Data Analytics & Personalization

Data lake corrupted due to malware infection affecting analytics workloads

Loss of customer insights; impaired marketing and risk analytics

Data segmentation, immutable backups, malware detection on analytics platforms

Cyber data integrity risk; ICT resilience of big data environments

1.10

Back-office Support & Reconciliation

Reconciliation systems are unavailable due to third-party software failure during the month-end

Financial reporting delays, audit issues, and operational backlog

Manual reconciliation contingencies; third-party resilience assurance; recovery testing

Third-party ICT risk; cyber and operational dependency integration

 
 Banner [Summing] [OR] [E3] Identify Severe but Plausible Scenarios

The severe but plausible scenarios identified for CBS-1 Retail & Digital Banking demonstrate how disruptions can arise from interconnected failures across people, process, technology, and third parties, often amplified by cyber and ICT risks.

By grounding scenarios in realistic threat conditions—such as ransomware attacks, cloud outages, data corruption, and third-party failures—AmBank can meaningfully test its ability to continue delivering critical services within acceptable impact thresholds.

Importantly, the inclusion of proactive risk management actions provides tangible evidence of AmBank’s commitment to operational resilience, showing not only how risks are identified but also how they are actively mitigated, monitored, and rehearsed.

This approach strengthens regulatory confidence, protects customers, and ensures that Retail & Digital Banking services remain resilient even under extreme but credible disruption scenarios.

 

Operational Resilience Framework: A Case Study of AmBank Malaysia

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