Global Wholesale Banking

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Global Wholesale Banking (GWB) was formed in July 2010 as a result of Maybank reframing its strategic mission to humanise financial services across ASEAN. Key to this new operating model is Client Coverage which provides a single point of contact for all clients supported by Maybank’s wholesale banking businesses (Investment Banking, Corporate Banking, Global Markets and Transaction Banking) as the product specialists. This holistic approach provides our clients with end to end financial solutions from origination to execution.

OVERVIEW

The new structure of GWB reflects the strategic intention to better respond to the needs of our corporate and institutional clients.

• Our Client Coverage division focuses on building long-term relationships with our clients and delivering customised solutions to our clients
• Investment Banking offers services ranging from financial advisory, mergers and acquisitions and IPOs to issuance of equity or debt, derivatives, equity trading and share margin financing
• Global Markets provides market making in fixed income securities, money market instruments and foreign exchange as well as structuring interest rates, currency and other structured products for clients
• Corporate Banking provides funding solutions to all types of requirements for our clients including working capital and capital investments as well as complex project financing and acquisition financing
• Transaction Banking caters to all our clients’ transactional needs such as cash management and trade finance (including structured trade), factoring, custody, trustee services as well as linking with our correspondent banks

The new way of engagement in GWB is meant to provide our clients a seamless offering across all our product offerings, giving clients a complete view encompassing all their needs. We will continue to improve our level of service as well as our product capabilities as we expand our scope across the region.

FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE

The new Client Coverage operating model has led towards a much improved performance for GWB, reflected in the growth of profit before tax (PBT) to
RM2.5 billion, up 26.9% from the previous financial year. Growth in profit was contributed primarily by higher non-interest income which grew by 35% owing to higher commission fees, advisory, brokerage and trading income and also due to the decline of 65% in allowances for losses on loans.
 

Asset quality continued to improve, reflected by the reduction in net impaired loan ratio. This is due to our continuous effort to adopt prudent credit lending, better risk management and also much improved debt recovery.

Notwithstanding the continued pressure on net interest margin, net interest income grew 8% on the back of stronger loans and deposits growth.

We recorded stronger loans growth for corporates of more than 20% year-on-year surpassing the industry growth of 13.5%. Trade finance continued to reflect increasing market share trend, reaching 24% in
April 2011.

We recorded double digit growth in deposits of 25% which outpaced the industry growth of 11.5% as at June 2011.

Commercial FX market share continued to rise. Meanwhile we maintained our leadership in Islamic bonds despite a lacklustre bond market performance in the first half of the financial year.

The FY2011 GWB Leadership Team (Back row left to right: Fairuz Radi, Tengku Dato’ Zafrul, Amos Ong, Lee Tien Poh, Hamzah Bachee, Abdul Farid Alias, John Wong, Kua Kee Tui, Leslie Foo. Front row left to right: Hasli Hashim, Khalijah Ismail, John Chong).

STRATEGIC THRUST AND INITIATIVES

To achieve our goal of becoming a leading regional wholesale bank by 2015, we have embarked on a five-year strategy to re-invent our corporate relationship model to humanise financial services, pursue ASEAN expansion, and enhance productivity by integrating and streamlining GWB businesses and instilling a high performance culture. We have defined strategic initiatives with clear business benefits as part of the five-year transformation roadmap.

Our focus in the first year has been to operationalise the GWB operating model in Malaysia. The strategic initiatives include establishing and enabling the Client Coverage model, transforming the business model and enhancing product execution capabilities for Corporate Banking and the newly-formed Transaction Banking business particularly the Cash Management and Trade Finance businesses. On the regional front, the Global Markets priority was the setting up of the regional centre of excellence for derivatives products. The Investment Banking focus, meanwhile, was on increasing competitiveness in the domestic market and pursuing regional expansion through organic and inorganic growth.

During the next financial year, our priority will be on the integration of our regional business. This includes operationalising the regional governance structure and regional coverage, and enabling product execution capabilities to drive wholesale banking business growth in our home markets of Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia, as well as the growth markets of the Philippines and Greater China. Investment Banking’s main focus will be to integrate Kim Eng Holdings Limited (Kim Eng) and synergise their business activities with other parts of GWB. Global Markets will continue to focus on improving their product capabilities across the region. We will also be embarking on the implementation of a regional infrastructure for Transaction Banking. On the domestic front, we will continue to improve turnaround time, product offering and productivity.

ACHIEVEMENTS

Several key factors have changed the market landscape. Firstly, there have been a number of regulatory changes concerning liquidity and capital requirements introduced subsequent to the 2008 financial crisis. Secondly, Asia has emerged as a significant growth market for global financial institutions. Thirdly, the need for more regional financial institutions has become even more pertinent. All of this has resulted in stiff competition in both the domestic wholesale banking market and the regional wholesale banking arena.

A year into GWB’s five-year transformation roadmap, we successfully rolled out global wholesale banking in Malaysia. In addition, the acquisition of Kim Eng, a leading independent Asian securities and investment banking group with a 38-year track record expanded our Investment Banking presence in eight out of ten ASEAN countries.

On the Transaction Banking front, we have completed the rollout of a new trade finance business model nationwide, resulting in an increase in productivity and speed of delivery.

For Global Markets, we successfully launched a treasury platform in Malaysia that allows straight through processing and thus provides our clients with greater ease of transaction.

Regionally, we have established a sizeable ASEAN footprint and now derive 34% of our wholesale banking revenue from regional markets. We have also launched the Global ATM platform overseas, thus providing us with a more efficient way to manage our clients’ transactions. This has allowed us to set up our ATM machines at all our overseas locations globally so that our customers can use their Maybank ATM card at any of these locations.

With the new structure, it becomes very apparent that our people are a key differentiator for service excellence and therefore a major priority was to provide relevant training programmes to boost staff skills and expertise alongside clear targeted recruitment and succession planning.

To help our people, in GWB we have established a set of business principles which defines how we interact with our clients, our community and internally with each other.
 

CLIENT COVERAGE

Central to GWB is our Client Coverage division which consists of relationship managers who are a team of dedicated professionals with diverse banking and capital markets experience responsible for crafting tailored financial solutions and interfacing between our clients and the bank. Its main focus is to build long-term relationships with clients, with personalised management based on a single point of contact model that is product neutral. Client Coverage collaborates with GWB product partners and synergises amongst the different business sectors across the Maybank Group to offer the full suite of products and solutions to our Clients. Products marketed by Client Coverage include corporate banking credit facilities, treasury solutions, trade finance and cash management and other transaction banking products, and investment banking solutions such as debt capital markets, advisory, mergers and acquisitions, equity fund raising and initial public offerings (IPO). In FY2011 we implemented a segment-based global relationship model, deployed our client coverage teams, rebalanced our client portfolio mix, and sharpened our focus on integrated product offerings through a cross-product account-planning platform. We have since received much positive feedback as well as winning new corporate clients. We will continue to strengthen the capabilities of our client coverage teams and expand our coverage model to serve our clients throughout the region.