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Outside Malaysia, our commercial banking business operates in 13 countries, of which seven are in ASEAN and the rest in strategic markets such as China, the Middle East, the United Kingdom and the USA. Though our international business is largely wholesale, we are also active in consumer business in our home markets of Singapore and Indonesia, as well as the expanding markets of the Philippines and Cambodia.
Our intention is to grow our footprint, especially in the ASEAN region, introduce both retail and wholesale banking, and offer consistent product delivery throughout the whole region using a single brand that our customers can identify with.
FY2011 was a challenging year with net interest margin narrowing across the region. Despite this, we delivered 19% growth in profit before tax, driven by better engagement with our clients and higher fee-based income.
Highlights
Our International Presence
In addition to our branches and subsidiaries, we have a 20% equity interest in MCB Bank Ltd. (MCB) in Pakistan, and 20% equity interest in An Binh Joint Stock Commercial Bank (ABB) in Vietnam.
Financial Performance
FY2011 saw profit before tax (PBT) rise 19.0% to RM1.49 billion, due to higher loans growth and non- interest income and lower loan loss provisions, partially offset by a strengthening of the ringgit against major currencies. This represents a contribution of 25% to the Group’s overall PBT.
Loans – mainly by our Singapore, Indonesia and Philippines operations – grew by 30% to RM89.9 billion, making up some 34% of the Group’s total loans. Asset quality also improved, with the non-performing loan ratio contained at 1.30% compared to 1.63% in FY2010.
Strategic Thrusts
We aspire to be a leading regional financial services provider by 2015, with 40% of pre-tax profit to be derived from international operations. As part of Global Wholesale Banking, we play a major role in providing a consistent customer experience via quality service offerings around the region, in line with our vision to humanise financial services.
To meet the demands of increasingly inter-connected countries around the region and in the countries where we operate, we continue to expand our overseas branch network and international product offerings, and at the same time continuously enhance our global capabilities and resources.
Achievements
FY2011 was marked by several milestones outside Malaysia.
Regional expansion is well on track. We opened 72 new branches in Indonesia and three in Cambodia. In addition, our Greater China operations received a boost after the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) provisionally approved our application to operate a fully-fledged commercial banking branch in the capital city of Beijing, which is slated to be up and running in 2012.
We continued to leverage on synergies with PT Bank Internasional Indonesia (BII) in terms of both business initiatives and support functions. Ongoing business initiatives include the channelling of remittances business and trade finance services, as well as the implementation of ATM regional link and strategic IT collaboration.
One notable corporate exercise completed during the financial year was the conversion in October 2010 of our Indonesia-based 96.8% subsidiary, PT Bank Maybank Indocorp, into an Islamic Bank. It has since been renamed PT Maybank Syariah Indonesia (MSI). Leveraging on Maybank’s strength in Islamic finance, MSI is well positioned to grow Islamic finance in the country with the world’s biggest Muslim population.
Several other key initiatives were successfully rolled-out during the financial year. We have gone to great lengths to enhance our regional governance structure. At the same time, we have been boosting our human capital capabilities via the recruitment, development and deployment of talents with global skills and exposure. We also continued to implement initiatives to integrate systems and processes around the globe.
Meanwhile, the regionalisation of various services has been successfully completed, and will be extended to cover all our markets in the future. We have successfully implemented Global ATM which links ATMs overseas to a centralised operation in Malaysia. This initiative benefits customers, who will be able to perform ATM transactions free of charge outside Malaysia. It also enhances the banking experience as well as improves operating efficiencies. In addition, we have set up internet banking overseas and implemented regional transaction banking capabilities covering global cash management, trade finance and global market services.
