PETALING JAYA: Strong capital and liquidity positions are expected to provide support for the local banking industry to withstand any potential shocks in the economy, says RHB Bank
Bhd, while Malaysia’s monetary policy stance is likely to be dependent on external factors such as the impact of tariff policies on the country and the momentum of domestic consumption.
Its group managing director and group chief executive, Datuk Mohd Rashid Mohamad, said the lender is well positioned to capture emerging opportunities and advance the priorities under its PROGRESS27 corporate strategy, leveraging customer-centric strategies, innovation and digital capabilities to create long-term value for all its stakeholders.
Releasing its results for the third quarter (3Q25) and nine months (9M25) ended Sept 30, 2025 yesterday, RHB Bank, the nation’s fourth-largest banking group by assets, posted an 8.5% year-on-year (y-o-y) growth in net profit to RM904mil, as revenue stayed solid at RM4.52bil.
The group attributed the stronger performance to higher total income, lower expected credit loss (ECL), and disciplined management of operating expenses.
For 9M25, net profit increased by 7.5% y-o-y to RM2.46bil, as turnover grew marginally to RM13.4bil, which RHB Bank said was primarily driven by higher net fund-based income, effective cost optimisation, disciplined credit cost management, and improved credit quality.
However, these were also offset by lower non-fund based income, higher operating expenses, higher tax expense and higher share of loss in associates.
A more detailed analysis of its 9M25 performance saw the lender’s net fund-based income grow 3.8% y-o-y to RM4.5bil, supported by a 7.9% gross loan growth, while net interest margin (NIM) with liability management stood at 1.87%.
At the same time, non-fund based income declined 5.6% y-o-y to RM2bil, on lower net gain on foreign exchange (forex) and derivatives, as well as brokerage income.
Operating expenses inched up 2.8% y-o-y to RM3bil, with cost-income ratio at 46.9%, as ECL more than halved from RM461.6mil to RM202.5mil due to absence of higher ECL from International Business recorded last year and higher net writeback for securities.
In addition, RHB Bank reported that for the nine months to September, annualised gross loans grew 4.3% to RM245bil, led by 6.8%, 7% and 12.9% growth in the group community banking, middle market SME and commercial segments, respectively.
This comes as domestic loan growth at 4.8% exceeded the industry average of 4.5%.
Meanwhile, gross impaired loans (GIL) also increased marginally to RM3.7bil, as the GIL ratio increased to 1.50%, from 1.47% or RM3.5bil in December 2024.
On the other hand, the group’s domestic GIL ratio was at 1.24%, staying below the industry average of 1.41%, as it also reported that its loan loss coverage ratio, including regulatory reserves, improved to 115.8%.
Annualised customer deposits grew 2.2% to RM254bil with current account-savings account (Casa) expanding 11.5% to RM75bil.
RHB Bank’s Casa ratio improved to 29.5%, compared to the 27.6% as at December 2024.
