RHB Bank not in merger talks with AMMB

RHB Capital has no definitive target on the number of staff to be released under the CTS.

KUALA LUMPUR: RHB Bank Bhd is not in any potential merger talks with mid-sized lender, AMMB Holdings Bhd, said group managing director Datuk Khairussaleh Ramli.

“There is no talk about merging with any bank,” he told a press conference after the company’s 51st annual general meeting here, today.

Khairussaleh was responding to a question on a merger talk between the two banks which resurfaced recently as reported by a local English daily.

“As far as I know, there is no merger talk with any bank.

“But if there is an opportunity, and merit is there, of course, we will consider,” he said.

On the bank’s loan performance, Khairussaleh said the small and medium enterprise (SME) segment would at least maintain last year’s growth of 15% this year.

“We saw the SME loan did quite well in the first quarter of the year, so we are quite optimistic that the growth would be as good as last year,” he said, adding the SME segment accounted for about 16% of the company’s total portfolio, up from 14% recorded two to three years ago.

Khairussaleh said RHB Bank was reshaping its total portfolio to skew towards more SME and retail segments compared to the corporate segment.

Currently, he said the retail segment constitutes 49-50% of the total portfolio, followed by corporate (31%), while SME makes up the remaining of 19%.

“We hope to increase the retail portfolio to 55%, reduce corporate (portfolio) to 25% and SME would rise to about 20% in the long term,” he said.

Apart form that, he said the group was taking efforts to enhance the financial supply chain and e-retail solutions to facilitate the SMEs to start their businesses.

On loan growth, he said RHB Bank was eyeing a growth of 5% to 6% this year, up from 2% last year.

“Basically, we are tracking the overall industry’s loan growth this year,” he said.

On the gross impaired loans ratio (GIL), Khairussaleh said the bank aimed to keep it below 2.5% this year and cost-to-income ratio (CTI) to stay below 50%.

Last year, the bank’s GIL was at 2.43% and CTI at 50%.

On loan exposure to the oil and gas (O&G) sector, Khairussaleh said it would continue to closely monitor the segment as it was still in a consolidation phase.

“We believe last year was the worst year, but we do not see enough consolidation in that segment yet although oil prices have stabilised now,” he said.

However, he reiterated that the O&G loan only accounted for 3.6% of the total loans, hence, the impairment from the segment was considered manageable. - Bernama