Teh Hong Piow has been in Malaysian banking longer than there has been a Malaysia.
“I will never forget August 6, 1966, when Public Bank officially commenced business in Kuala Lumpur,” he says.
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It started out in a three-storey building; today its 36-storey office headquarters oversees 265 branches nationwide. It has never not been profitable; having crossed a billion ringgit profit for the first time in 2000, it increased that figure sevenfold by 2017.
“Starting a bank, by any measure, is daunting,” he says.
But even back then he had built a strong career at OCBC in Singapore and Malayan Banking, a forerunner of today’s Maybank.
“I was not totally venturing into the unknown.