Business Times - 9/8/2004 8:45:00 AM GMT
Nazlan Ozizi Ibrahim, the acting managing director of the Bank Islam Malaysia, said that the Bank is not worried about the appearance of newer, full-fledged Islamic banks in the country.
Nazlan expects the new players to complement the role of existing players in the banking industry rather than competing with them.
“We welcome these new players in the industry. The more, the merrier,” he told reporters after the launch of MyKad ATM (automated teller machine) by Bank Islam yesterday.
He also said: “It will make it easier for us to borrow funds via inter-bank loans based on Syariah principles.”
Bank Islam is the first Islamic bank in Malaysia. It was established in July 1983, followed by Bank Muamalat Malaysia, which opened for business in October 1999.
similar banks are to be established, to reach four banks, since RHB Capital and Commerce Asset-Holding have been given approvals to build full-fledged Islamic banking operations through their subsidiaries.
The number of those banks may even increase more in the future as the Government has said that it is ready to gradually award Islamic banking licenses to all Malaysian banks.
Nazlan said Bank Islam sees no real threat from the new players as the bank has been focusing more on capital market-related businesses instead of retail banking.
He said that Bank Islam is planning to focus more on retail banking from now on.
At the moment, retail financing constitutes 50 per cent of Bank Islam’s total RM8 billion loan assets, while the rest is from corporate and commercial financings.
Nazlan said that the bank is working on raising the ratio to 60 per cent retail and 40 per cent non-retail within one to two years.
He added that Bank Islam expects to maintain its loan growth at around 15 per cent level like last year’s on the back of its relatively small loan base.
Bank Islam has 87 branches and 185 ATM machines nationwide. The number of its customer is about 1.2 million, while its total deposits amount to RM11.3 billion.