Ask for free basic savings account. All banks in Malaysia will have that as it's BNM rules to offer such account. Banks will usually discourage you from opening that account. Just ignore and be firm that you want that account.

Setback: 8x free ATM withdrawal a month.

That's ridiculous.  Paid debit cards = free debit card. I have never experienced that. The only thing I experienced is bank officer making a black face when I request for free BSA

A well place "I am going to report this issue to BNM"  will rectify the problem.

I’ll have to disagree with the above statements.

I am using a non-fee BSA from the much complained CIMB Bank mainly due to their higher annual fee for their debit MasterCard. The card they issue to non-fee BSA account is the exact same debit card they issue to all other accounts that come with RM15.90 annual fee. So there is actually no reason for them to tell you they have run out of stock of the free debit card. Same situation with my RHB Bank and AmBank non-fee BSA too. The same generic debit card is given to me but it doesn’t come with annual fee as my account is the non-fee BSA.

And some of us here were also merely sharing our actual experience in getting the debit card without paying a single cent and it was pretty much an effortless effort. The disagree part was about the part you made it like one has to spend a lot of time to get this done, to the point one might needs to lodge a complaint to BNM. I went to CIMB Bank and requested for a non-fee BSA-I. They told me it comes with limited ATM withdrawals which I acknowledged and told them it is fine. So they proceeded to open the requested account type for me right away. Didn’t need to complain to BNM.

That someone was only giving a suggestion provided the bank staff absolutely refuses to open a non-fee BSA for you. I’m sure he had no problem opening a non-fee BSA in the past.

You may want to check the time the post was edited before you start throwing allegation that I tried to mask something, which was only a minute after the post was posted and your subsequent reply was posted many hours after I posted the first reply. Never did I edit out anything other than a typo or something.