Affin Bank to increase it capex to RM400mil next year

President and group chief executive officer Datuk Wan Razly Abdullah

KUALA LUMPUR: Affin Bank Bhd will increase its information technology (IT) capital expenditure (Capex) to about RM400 million next year from RM300 million this year as it continues to push towards digitalisation while aiming to attract more customers on board.

President and group chief executive officer Datuk Wan Razly Abdullah said the bank is striving to provide its customers with unrivaled services and improve itself day by day.

"We will be launching our mobile application soon, bringing the best breed in the system in line with our growth plans,” he told reporters in a briefing after the bank’s extraordinary general meeting (EGM) here today.

Wan Razly said the bank’s EGM saw its shareholders unanimously voted to approve the proposed special dividend amounting to RM400.21 million or 18.09 sen per share, the highest ever by the bank.

He said the proposed special dividend was due to the completion of the bank’s 63 per cent equity interest divestment in Affin Hwang Asset Management Bhd (AHAM).

"With this approved special dividend combined with the interim dividend of RM100.2 million, or around 4.53 cent per share announced earlier, we will see the shareholders of Affin Bank receiving a total dividend of RM500 million in December.

"Payments of these dividends will be made by end of December 2022,” he said.

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On A25 transformation plan, he said the bank is now focusing on the plan’s three key pillars, namely Unrivalled Customer Service, Digital Leadership and Responsible Banking with Impact, which it aims to achieve by 2025.

He said the plan aimed to achieve 10 per cent return on equity (ROE), drive revenue growth and double the bank’s customer base to two million.

Besides that, he said it also hoped to achieve a 30 per cent growth in current account savings account (CASA) by 2025.

Currently, he said the bank recorded 23 per cent CASA growth, slightly lower than this year’s target of 25 per cent.

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"We see many headwinds such as inflation costs coming in and the tightening of disposable income with the hikes in overnight policy rates (OPR) but we also see that there are pockets of opportunities, namely in the retail banking, SMEs and even the corporates to improve our CASA.

"This is why we are embarking on many things such as introducing the new mobile app and a new online platform on our website with value-added services to attract more customers because the better CASA we have, the better margins we make and the stronger we will be,” he said.

He said Affin Bank would also look for strategies to increase its fee income business, forex business, wealth and insurance business moving forward.

"We are very targeted and selective in how we approach our customers. We will remain agile and adjust ourselves to various headwinds as we are long-term positive on Malaysia and its capabilities of growing the overall business in this country,” he added. - Bernama