AmBank ready to embrace fintech

AmBank Group group CEO Datuk Sulaiman Mohd Tahir said in a statement that the award further underscored the Islamic finance expertise and capabilities that the bank had built over the years.

KUALA LUMPUR: Having invested RM500 million to revamp its core banking system in recent years, AMMB Holdings Bhd (AmBank Group)  is now ready to embrace financial technology (fintech).

Group Chief Executive Officer, Datuk Sulaiman Mohd Tahir said the bank is structurally ready to transform its digital banking capabilities.

“We are structurally ready to embrace the new world. The base is ready. Thus, the next investment would not be that much, only some tail-end delivery to optimise our core banking.

“I don't foresee new major investment (in fintech) and currently its more about the know-how of the processes that we want to deploy,” he said on the sidelines of the bank's, “Win A Porsche” campaign launch, here on Wednesday.

Fintech, a portmanteau of financial technology that describes an emerging financial services sector in the 21st century, is the new technology and innovation that aims to compete with traditional financial methods in the delivery of financial services.

Sulaiman said Ambank's digital journey would be customer-led and involve a gradual transformation process.

AmBank Group is the sixth largest banking group by assets in Malaysia, with a market capitalisation of around RM15 billion,  alongside assets of RM134.8 billion as at March 31, 2017. It has also over three million customers and about 11,000 employees.

Meanwhile, following the aborted Ambank-RHB Bank merger plan, Sulaiman said the bank remained open to other future possibilities.

"Right now, there is nothing on the table, but it doesn't mean we stop growing our business. We still aim to be among the top four banking groups in the country by market capitalisation by 2020," he added. - Bernama