From left: President & Group CEO, Datuk Khairussaleh Ramli, Chairman Tan Sri Zamzamzairani Mohd Isa and acting group chief financial officer Malique Sidique.
KUALA LUMPUR: Malayan Banking Bhd
(Maybank), which posted a historic high net profit of RM10.09bil in the financial year ended Dec 31, 2024 (FY24), is banking on robust investments into the country and higher consumption to spur growth.
“We remain quite confident that this year Malaysia can still record reasonable growth in gross domestic product and that will be driven by primarily two areas,” president and group chief executive officer Datuk Khairussaleh Ramli told the media at a results briefing yesterday.
He cited the record high approved investments in Malaysia totalling RM378.5bil in 2024, marking a 14.9% year-on-year (y-o-y) growth.
The other growth driver for the economy, he added, will be consumption, which will be driven by the rising minimum wage, the ability to withdraw from the Employees Provident Fund account, and higher salary for government servants.
Maybank said it will focus on its growth areas of wealth management, mid-market, non-retail and bancassurance segments.
“We continue to see good traction across our core businesses, collectively strengthening our top-line growth.
“At the same time, we better manage our asset quality and overheads. This has been further boosted by efforts to deepen our relationship with our customers, reinforcing our segmental approach and customer penetration across products and sectors,” Khairussaleh said.
The country’s largest banking group by asset size reported a 7.9% jump in its net profit in FY24 from RM9.35bil in the previous year, driven by strong operating income on the back of positive regional economic activities and a steady improvement in net impairment provisions.
Revenue, meanwhile, improved to RM68.94bil versus RM63.52bil.
In the fourth quarter of 2024 (4Q24), Maybank recorded a net profit of RM2.53bil, up from RM2.39bil, while revenue grew to RM16.74bil from RM16.17bil in 4Q23.
The group declared a full-cash interim dividend of 32 sen per share, which brought the full-year dividend to 61 sen per share versus 60 sen in FY23.
Its net operating income grew 8.1% to RM29.57bil in FY24, led by a 22.6% increase in non-interest income (NOII) from higher fees from wealth management and investment banking, and income from global markets and insurance.
Net fund-based income rose 2% to RM19.69bil with loan growth of 5.3% y-o-y.
The group’s net interest margin (NIM) stood at 2.05% as a result of higher funding cost and continued deposit competition.
NIM improved three basis points in 4Q24 owing to positive traction of deposit and funding strategy.
Khairussaleh expected NOII, which contributed 33.4% of total income in FY24, to continue growing faster than net interest income (NII).
“We think what will happen is that NOII will simply grow faster than NII. We are only growing loans, say, 5% to 6%, so NII will not grow as fast.
“But in terms of wealth business, I think the pipeline for investment banking is also strong, and even global markets, we think that the global business is good. The trajectory is positive as well, as far as NOII is concerned,” he said.
Meanwhile, net impairment provisions decreased 2% to RM1.65bil due to higher bad debts recovered in FY24.
The group’s deposits, meanwhile, expanded 6.5% on growth across its Singapore (18.7%), Malaysia (6%) and Indonesia (3%) markets.
Group fixed deposits was up 5.8% and group current account savings account increased 5.5%, owing to growth in the Singapore and Malaysia markets.
Meanwhile, touching on the abrupt removal of chief financial officer Khalijah Ismail, Khairussaleh said the timing of the announcement, which came days ahead of the release of its quarterly results, was just a coincidence.
“We believe that it was a price-sensitive moment, market-sensitive information. And once the decision was made, we needed to announce it immediately, given that it is a market-sensitive information,” he explained.
He reiterated that Khalijah left following an inquiry over non-compliance with internal requirements and processes.
“The inquiry took place. The incident was deliberated. All parties were given an opportunity and a decision was made,” he said. “Please understand that we are limited in what we can share as advised by our lawyers,” Khairussaleh said.
The accounts were “obviously audited by our external auditors and further there was no financial loss suffered by the bank,” he added.
On Feb 17, Maybank announced the departure of Khalijah with immediate effect but did not provide further details except to say that it was following an “internal inquiry.”
The internal inquiry was not triggered by any law enforcement agency and remains an isolated incident, according to several analysts who attended the briefing.
Bank Negara, which regulates the financial services sector, was informed of the decision.
“The internal inquiry was also, we believe, an isolated case, and not triggered by the authorities. There was also no regulatory breach. So I trust this clarification will suffice,” he added.
Khairussaleh said the internal inquiry conducted against Khalijah was in accordance with the bank’s due process as well as internal policies and she was given the opportunity to present the case during the inquiry process.
“We uphold governance to the highest standard. We think that any activity or any decision that we make will have to be based on key principles including governance and this includes the action we took on the group chief financial officer.
“The search is underway. We will update the market once we have identified one,” Khairussaleh said.
