Maybank aims for higher SME loan growth this year

KUALA LUMPUR: Malayan Banking Bhd (Maybank) is targeting for its retail small and medium enterprise (SME) loan to grow between 18% and 20% this year. Its deputy president and head of community financial services Datuk Lim Hong Tat said the segment grew about 10% last year.

Source from (The Star Online): http://biz.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2013/4/5/business/12929700&sec=business
Published: April 05, 2013

Source from (Business Times): http://www.btimes.com.my/Current_News/BTIMES/articles/smay/Article/
Published: April 05, 2013



The bank's deputy president/head of community financial services Datuk Lim Hong Tat said over the last three months, the RSME segment has registered an annualised growth of 18 per cent.

"And for next year, we are confident we can grow it by more than 20 per cent," he told a media briefing on RSME at Maybank's headquarters here yesterday.

He added that by 2015, Maybank wants to be number one in RSME financing, from the current second position.

Lim said the growth in RSME financing will be driven by the bank's new credit risk assessment tool, which was rolled out late last year.

The RSME financing, which is financing of RM5 million and below for small businesses, is a business segment within Maybank's SME banking that the bank wants to tap aggressively after it introduced the new credit risk tool.

Last year, its RSME loans stood at about RM5 million, or about 14 per cent of the bank's overall SME loans of RM35 billion.

Lim is confident that Maybank will be able to grow the RSME business to greater heights as the new scorecard it has put in place promises faster turnaround of about seven to eight days, hassle-free and competitive pricing.

"Previously, our old scorecard depended on financial statements of the companies and when these are not made available to us, we had to do a lot of probing. But the new assessment tool allows us to make decisions based on the repayment behaviour of our clients and their accounts' activity," he explained.

He said the ability to rank customers using this tailor-made risk tools will enable the bank to build a healthy SME portfolio based on a preferred target risk profile and segment.

The tools, he said will enable the bank to constantly monitor the performance and behaviour of the SME portfolio.

Lim said the tools are employed at all its 400 branches nationwide.

He added that SMEs wanting to obtain loans without collateral can do so now with its SME Clean Loan as long as they have a one-year banking record with Maybank, following which they can get access to fast cash of up to RM500,000.

Maybank's SME customer base over recent years has grown to more than 400,000, or 60 per cent, of the country's total SME establishments.

As at end of 2012, it commanded a SME loans market share of 21.6 per cent, up from 16.4 per cent in 2010. Its RSME market share, meanwhile, stood at only 13 per cent.

On the RSME non-performing loans, Lim said it stands at between five per cent and six per cent.