Maybank Islamic Targets 15-18 Percent Growth

KOTA KINABALU (Sabah, Malaysia), April 21 (Bernama) -- Maybank Islamic Bhd is targeting to grow its assets in the region of 15-18 per cent this year, says chief executive officer Muzaffar Hisham. He said the bank now enjoys growth in both the corporate and customer segments, although they are still cautiously optimistic about growth this year. “This is the advantage of our business as the growth is coming from both sides. We have a target for our bottom line which has been reported, and we hope to touch a pre-tax profit of RM1 billion (US$326.2 million). “However, we have three more quarters to go and I’m extremely cautious on the economy but we still want to grow, although we want to grow cautiously and responsibly,” he told the media in conjunction with Permodalan Nasional Bhd's unit trust week here on Saturday. Muzaffar said they currently have more than four million customers, comprising Muslims as well as non-Muslims. “Our demographic is a good mix, for Muslims the advantage is we offer our services based on Syariah compliance, while for non-Muslims we can give them better returns. So it’s a choice,” he added. However, he said, they are also looking to grow in volume and profitability as well. He said Maybank Islamic now contributes 28 per cent of the domestic financing to the group, and expects the growth rate to sustain this year. On regional operations, Muzaffar said they are doing well in Indonesia and Singapore which are seeing tremendous growth in the Islamic banking industry. “At the moment our key markets are Singapore and Indonesia, but we are continuously looking for opportunities in any new market. “Most probably we want to penetrate Brunei, but we are still looking at the opportunity. "We want to be pragmatic, we want our investments to provide good returns to us,” he added. --BERNAMA