19/05/2025

BANKING & INSURANCE 12 MONDAY | MAY 19, 2025

CIMB enters pivotal chapter as it transitions to Forward30

UOB Malaysia named country’s number one at Global Finance Best Bank Awards PETALING JAYA: UOB Malaysia has been named the Best Bank in Malaysia at the 32nd Annual World’s Best Bank Awards 2025 – Asia Pacific by Global Finance magazine. UOB Malaysia CEO Ng Wei Wei ( pic ) said that over the past three years, it has been working on the bank’s trans formation and the recognition by Global Finance affirms UOB Malaysia’s leadership as a progressive, purpose driven bank that not only contributes to Malaysia’s growth but also supports customers and communities across Malaysia and the wider Asean region. “We are proud to be acknowledged for our strong financial performance, as well as our commitment to innovation, sustainability, service excellence and community steward ship,” she said in a statement. The Global Finance World’s Best Bank Awards honour financial institutions that demonstrate long term stability, technological inno vation and excellence in service. In selecting the top banks, Global Finance considered a mix of quanti tative and qualitative factors, in cluding asset growth, profitability, geographic reach, strategic partner ships, innovation and new business development. Input was gathered from industry experts, analysts, consultants and corporate financial executives worldwide. Over the past year, UOB Malaysia has made significant strides in both retail and wholesale banking. On the retail front, the bank successfully integrated the Citi consumer banking business and continues to enhance its digital capabilities with the award winning UOB TMRW app. UOB Malaysia is now among the largest credit card issuers in the country and continues to be a key player in wealth management and residential mortgages. In wholesale banking, UOB Malaysia has built a track record in financial supply chain management, regional connectivity and sustainable financing. Its foreign direct invest ment advisory unit continues to provide support to foreign companies investing into Malaysia and Malaysian companies expanding into Asean. UOB Malaysia is also a frontrunner in sustainability. Its sustainable financing portfolio has tripled over the last two years, supported by comprehensive frameworks across many strategic focus areas including smart cities, green buildings, circular economy and transition finance.

broadened revenue streams, streng thened asset quality, increased focus on efficiency and resiliency, while remaining agile in a dynamic market environment. Our vision to drive meaningful change continues to play centre stage as we embrace a customer-centric approach that benefits both customers and society in the markets we operate.” He continued: “2025 marks a pivotal chapter for CIMB as we transition from our Forward23+ strategy to our newly launched strategic roadmap, Forward30, which is anchored on our purpose of advancing customers and society. Forward30 has a strong focus on optimising capital allocation and reimagining banking through a truly customer-centric model. We are seeing increased business oppor tunities in the ‘new world order’, especially with intra-regional trade, which will benefit an integrated Asean franchise like CIMB. “We are committed to delivering simpler, better and faster ex periences to our customers, while empowering our employees with simpler, better and faster pro cesses.” Novan said they will continue to double down on technology in cluding generative artificial intelli gence, to elevate their customers’ banking experience, improve pro ductivity and resilience. “This is central to our ambition of becoming the top-of-mind Asean bank, by securing a top three Net Promoter Score ranking across our key markets. We will be relentless in our execution as we pursue these goals, and we remain confident in our ability to navigate volatility, underpinned by the strength and resilience of our franchise. “We are deeply grateful for the trust placed in us, and we are focused on unlocking new areas of growth while maintaining a strong balance between purpose and performance,” he added.

CIMB Group chairman Tan Sri Mohd Nasir Ahmad said, “On behalf of the board, I would like to extend my sincere gratitude and appre ciation to all our stakeholders for their steadfast trust and partnership over the past year. 2024 marked a rebound for Malaysia, which exceeded expectations and provided a strong foundation for the banking sector. This enabled CIMB to navigate volatilities with confidence and stability, while meeting our Forward23+ targets, which have strengthened our position as the leading focused Asean bank and delivered an nualised total shareholders return of 34.6% from 2020 to 2024.” CIMB Group CEO Novan Amirudin said, “Forward23+ has strengthened the group’s foundation to navigate the ‘new world order’ from a position of strength. We strategically reshaped our portfolio,

o Group doubles down on technology to elevate customers’ banking experience and improve productivity and resilience

PETALING JAYA: CIMB Group Holdings Bhd held its 68th annual general meeting in Kuala Lumpur recently, where all 12 ordinary resolutions tabled were passed and the audited financial statements for the financial year ended Dec 31, 2024 (FY24) were duly received. CIMB Group reported a robust performance in 2024, driven by strong client franchise business. The performance was underpinned by a proactive pivot to a deposit-led strategy to preserve net interest margins, increasing cross-sell opportunities, maintaining disciplined cost controls

and improving asset quality. As a result, the group increased its return on equity to 11.2% in 2024, up from 10.7% in 2023, while meeting most of the financial targets set under its Forward23+ strategic plan. CIMB Group remains well capitalised, with its Common Equity Tier 1 ratio of 14.6% as at December 2024 demonstrating its continued capital strength and resilience. The group declared a total annual dividend of 47 sen per share, representing a payout ratio of 55.5%, with a record total dividend payout of RM5.04 billion for FY24.

Mohd Nasir (left) and Novan looking at CIMB Group’s annual report at the company’s 68th AGM recently.

M’sian takaful industry makes significant strides in 2024 PETALING JAYA: Malaysia’s takaful industry made significant strides in 2024, fulfilling its commitment to protect and uplift the rakyat through a combination of financial security, social outreach and shared prosperity. Underpinned by the Hijrah27 transformation agenda, the industry collectively disbursed RM10.2 billion in benefits to certificate holders, a 16.73% increase from 2023. Family takaful accounted for over three quarters (77.37%) of the benefits paid in 2024 at RM7.89 billion, while general takaful honoured RM2.31 billion. 6.60 million in 2023, after accounting for certificate replacements, expiries or terminations during the period. The new certificates translated to a 1.48% growth in new business gross contribution at RM9.73 billion from RM9.59 billion. Business in-force contributions rose in tandem, to RM9.62 billion in 2024 from RM8.97 billion in 2023, a growth of 7.2%. from 5.58 million in 2019-2021. The growth translated to family takaful’s new business contribution, which averaged RM9.79 billion per year in the 2022-2024 period, up from RM7.08 billion per year in 2019 - 2021. There are now 92,866 active family takaful agents, with 26,714 new agents registered in 2024 alone. Correspondingly, agents’ market share of new business increased to 25.56% in 2024 against 23.17% in 2023. Bancatakaful continued to extend its lead at 52.05% of new business contribution, up from 48.68%. billion from RM5.44 billion the year prior. General takaful’s performance remained driven by motor takaful, the largest contributor to the segment at 68.77% of gross written contribution. This paralleled Malaysia’s record-high 816,747 new vehicle sales units in 2024, surpassing the 800,000-unit mark for the first time. With motor takaful accounting for the largest share of the segment, motor claims proportionately accounted for the majority of general takaful claims paid at RM2.04 billion, or 88.3%.

The upward trend was most apparent when looking at a three year bloc period trend. The average increase in takaful benefit payout per year in 2022-2024 was RM1.54 billion per year, a significant quantum of almost 400% when viewed against the RM393.34 million average increment in 2019-2021. The average number of in-force family takaful certificates per year rose to 6.64 million in 2022-2024

In the non-motor classes, fire takaful experienced greater uptake in 2024 with RM1 billion gross written contribution, rising 7.27% from the previous period, while personal accident moderated to 6.56% at RM388 million gross written contribution.

The general takaful segment maintained its momentum in 2024. Gross written contribution rose to RM5.91 billion from RM5.45 billion, translating to a 8.46% growth. Gross direct contribution saw a corres ponding uptick, at 8.41%, to RM5.90

The increased payout came on the back of a greater number of in force family takaful certificates. A total of 993,393 new certificates were issued for the year, bringing the total number of in-force certificates modestly higher to 6.69 million from

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