How to retrieve your Maybank2u.Premier (iAccount) e-statements from 2004 without paying

If you hold a Maybank2u.Premier account, formerly known as the i-Account, then here's a handy tip in case you need to retrieve your old statements. Best part? You can retrieve all your statements from 2004, without paying any of the ridiculous banking fees.

Before we get any further, let's recap the basic features of this account:

• Statements are only made available through the Internet (known as e-Statements)
• At any point in time, you will have access to the latest 3 statements
• In the event you require older statements, you would have to request for printed copies, charged at RM10, and an additional RM1 for every printed page

Pre-requisites:

• Firefox 2.0
• Basic understanding of HTML source code
• A little patience

Now, here's how you can beat the system:

1) Login to Maybank2u.com

2) Go to: eStatement > Maybank2u.Premier Statement

3) View the source for this page. Note that Maybank2u.com uses HTML frames; this means that you have to view the source of the frame in focus. On a PC with Firefox 2.0, right-click on the main area (Enquiry), and choose: This Frame > View Frame Source. You should see something similar to the following:



4) Press Ctrl+F (Find). Look for BV_SessionID. Copy the "value" in to a temporary text file, e.g.:
@@@@0759140826.1167939086@@@@

5) Press Ctrl+F (Find). Look for BV_EngineID. Copy the "value" in to a temporary text file, e.g.:
ccfkaddjkmflgmjcflgcehfdfkgdgij.0

6) Press Ctrl+F (Find). Look for accountNo. Copy the "value" in to a temporary text file, e.g.:
514281143501

7) Open a new tab in Firefox (Ctrl+T)

8) Copy and paste the following URL into your address bar, replacing the REPLACEME's with the values copied from above:


9) The pasted URL contains a date at the end of the string. The example above will retrieve the statement for December 2006 (31/12/06). To retrieve the statement for October 2005, just change this date to 31/10/05 signifying the end of the month. For June 2004, enter 30/06/04.

10) Press Enter, and you should see your statement.

Did it work for you? For help just drop me an email: emailme at praveenrajan dot com

Caveats:

• I've been able to retrieve all statements from May 2004 onwards. This was when Maybank2u switched their statement cycle to the end of the month. Prior to May 2004, it was processed on the 15th of every month.
• Your Maybank2u.com session expires after 5 minutes -- when prompted, don't forget to click OK to remain online

Why Maybank2u, why?
So, why does Maybank2u block us from retrieving statements older than 3 months? Is it a way to generate peripheral revenue? Or is this due to a system limitation (e.g. extensive processing tasks)? I doubt that it is in relation to the latter, as Internet-banking sites should be built to handle massive processing tasks.

Considering that the current system produces statements from May 2004, why not make this historical data available to every Maybank2u.Premier account holder? It's a useful enhancement. Besides, no other Internet-banking service in town offers such extensive historical data (for now).

Related links:

• Praveen Rajan: dig maybank2u.com
• Praveen Rajan: rhbbank.com - glitch on Firefox?