KUALA LUMPUR: With an aim to broaden its horizons, Alliance Bank Malaysia Bhd
will look into expanding into new areas beyond SME to accelerate its business growth, said group CEO Kellee Kam.
Commenting on the bank's recent quarterly results, he said the bank’s performance is in tandem with strides it is making in the strategic priorities of acquiring more customers, deepening customer engagement and gaining efficiencies.
"The bank has doubled its new-to-bank customer acquisition year-on-year, acquiring approximately 44,000 customers through various digital solutions including e-Know Your Customer (e-KYC), Alliance Digital SME, BizSmart mobile app, BizSmart eTrade, and allianceonline mobile app.
"The achievement puts the bank on track towards the target of acquiring 80,000 new-to-bank customers by end FY2023," he said in a statement.
Kam said this while announcing the bank's results for the second financial quarter ended Sept 30, 2022, with net profit coming in at RM158.42mil, slightly below a net profit of RM172.74mil in the previous corresponding quarter.
Earning per share in the quarter under review was 10.23 sen as compared with 11.16 sen in the comparative quarter.
The bank reported revenue of RM480.57mil, up from RM452.98mil.
This brought the bank's net profit for the six months period in FY23 to RM370.58mil and revenue to RM954.65mil.
The bank declared a first interim dividend of 12 sen per share, representing a total dividend payout ratio of 50%.
According to the group, net interest income grew 12.4% year-on-year (y-o-y) to RM813mil due to higher loans volume and overnight policy rate hike impact.
The net interest margin improved 11 basis points to 2.64%.
Meanwhile, client-based fee income excluding brokerage was up 5.7% y-o-y to RM141.6mil, driven by higher wealth management, foreign exchange sales and trade fees.
The bank's cost-to-income ratio remained stable at 43.9%.
Over the period, Alliance Bank recorded an overall loans growth of 6.7%, which it said was attributable to the growth in SME banking and commercial banking.
Customer-based funding was 8.4% higher y-o-y and current account savings account (Casa) ratio was 48.7%.
In terms of capital positions and liquidity, common equity Tier-1 (CET 1) was 15.1% while Tier-1 capital ratio was 16.4%.
Total capital ratio stood at 20.5%, liquidity coverage ratio was 164.4% and loan-to-fund ratio was 85.7%.
