Malaysia

Malaysia’s sixth-biggest bank was once eager to serve the country’s now disgraced former prime minister Najib Razak and his fugitive associate Jho Low. And then it all went wrong, as court cases in Kuala Lumpur reveal.

Slow and steady is winning the race for Malaysia's Maybank ‒ one to watch in regional banking.

Affin Hwang

In 2017, CIMB’s then chairman Nazir Razak declared the bank would be sending 1% of its profits to its CSR-enabling agency, the CIMB Foundation, for philanthropic and charitable initiatives, a bold gesture that would triple CIMB’s annual CSR spend over the subsequent years to between RM65 million and RM75 million ($15.6 million to $18 million).

Benjamin Cavalli took over as Credit Suisse’s regional private banking head in August 2018; he seems to have hit the ground running. The Swiss private bank reports that net new assets in Malaysia soared 604% in the first quarter of 2019 (but does not provide actual figures).

HLB boss Domenic Fuda’s ‘digital at the core’ ethos is paying off.

As HSBC pointed out in a survey that it distributed across Malaysia in May 2019: “Malaysians spend more time swooning over property than at the gym.”

Under chief executive Fad’l Mohamed’s stewardship, Maybank Investment Bank (a unit of Maybank) has had a busy year across all of Malaysia’s capital markets, topping the national league tables in equity and with solid top two finishes in advisory and M&A.