IslamicFinance.de

The BIMB Holdings Bhd group is set to finally unfold. BIMB announced a series of proposals that will ultimately see it transfer its listing status to its wholly-owned subsidiary Bank Islam Malaysia Bhd. In the first step, BIMB will undertake a private placement of new shares to raise RM800 million to fully settle outstanding sukuk held by Lembaga Tabung Haji (TH). BIMB had, December 2018, done an early partial redemption of RM609.9 million, helping reduce the outstanding amount.

Bank Islam Malaysia expects its home financing business model will continue to help the bank to grow and boost its assets. Malaysia’s oldest Islamic lender has been growing organically over the years, despite the crowded market. Bank Islam CEO Mohd Muazzam Mohamed said the bank is already adopting the right model to support this affordable segment. He added that the Islamic bank will continue with its current business model which is in line with the governments’ directive. Bank Islam has already allocated RM300 million to be utilised until 2021 as part of its digitalisation directive. Mohd Muazzam said the bank aims to increase its financing for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) by RM200 million in 2019. The bank also plans to increase its investment fund to RM800 million under its Al-Awfar product, which has been refreshed since its establishment in 2009.

BIMB Holdings, the parent company of Bank Islam Malaysia, has allocated RM300 million for investment under its three-year (2018-2020) digital roadmap. Bank Islam CEO Mohd Muazzam Mohamed said digital investment was the group's future focus and it already had a few products in the pipeline. He added that the bank's digital journey includes improving customer service touch points and business efficiency through upgrading back-end processes. Mohamed also said the bank currently had 500,000 Internet banking users, which had been doubling annually, supported by the bank's mobile application. BIMB Holdings was incorporated in Malaysia on March 20, 1997 and was listed on the Bursa Malaysia Securities Main Market on Sept 16 in the same year.