Malaysia’s largest banking group by assets intends to maintain its liquidity and capital positions to support business growth and meet the needs of its stakeholders in an uncertain economic environment.
PETALING JAYA: Malayan Banking Bhd
(Maybank) will focus on driving loan growth in key business segments across its “home” markets within a rising rate environment and amid expectations of more moderate global economic growth, going forward.
Maybank, with its “home” markets in Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia, projects the central banks in these countries to continue with their respective monetary tightening policies to combat inflationary pressures and thus affecting consumer spending and growth.
Operationally, Malaysia’s largest banking group by assets intends to maintain its liquidity and capital positions to support business growth and meet the needs of its stakeholders in an uncertain economic environment.
Despite the cautious outlook, Maybank posted a 28.5% year-on-year (y-o-y) jump in net profit for its third quarter ended Sept 30 to RM2.17bil, while revenue saw a 20.4% y-o-y climb to RM13.4bil.
Maybank attributed the positive results to a y-o-y increase of RM651.1mil or 13.5% rise in net interest income and income from its Islamic banking scheme operations for the three months ended Sept 30, while net earned insurance premiums from its insurance and takaful subsidiaries also grew by RM275.5mil or 13.9% to RM2.26bil.
“Other operating income increased by RM232.7mil to RM1.546bil for the quarter ended Sept 30 as compared to the corresponding quarter of 2021. The increase was mainly due to a higher unrealised mark-to-market gain on revaluation of financial liabilities at FVTPL (fair value through profit or loss) of RM965.5mil and net foreign exchange gain of RM445.9mil for the quarter in review,” the lender said in a statement to Bursa Malaysia yesterday.
Cumulatively, for the nine months ended Sept 30, Maybank posted net earnings of RM6.17bil, constituting a marginal drop of 0.5% from the RM6.2bil achieved in the first three quarters of 2021. Turnover however, saw a 5.3% growth to RM36.5bil for the period in review, as compared to the first nine months of last year.
Besides income from Islamic banking as well as from its insurance and takaful businesses which saw increases cumulatively for the first three quarters of 2022 compared with the corresponding period of last year, Maybank said other operating income of the group recorded a 17.8% decline to RM2.86bil.
“The decrease was mainly due to higher unrealised mark-to-market loss on revaluation of derivatives of RM1,97bil, net loss in investment income of RM542.3mil for the nine-month financial period ended Sept 30, as compared to net gain of RM585.2mil for the previous corresponding nine months of 2021, higher unrealised mark-to-market loss on revaluation of financial investments at FVTPL of RM587.6mil and lower fee income of RM234.3mil,” it said.
The bank also pointed that overhead expenses for the nine months ended Sept 30 rose by 9.8% y-o-y RM9.4bil, on the back of higher personnel expenses of RM351.6mil, as well as increased administration and general costs of RM222.3mil, among other payments.
The positive trend was also evident quarter-on-quarter, as net profit rose 13.6% from the quarter ended June 30, while turnover also increased by almost 20% from RM11.2bil.
Meanwhile, earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter ended Sept 30 went up by 26.4% y-o-y to 18.22 sen relative to the corresponding quarter of 2021 where it was 14.41 sen. Cumulative EPS for the first nine months of 2022 however, decreased fractionally by 3% to 50.81 sen compared to the first three quarters of last year.
Moving forward, the company said it will also continue to proactively engage with customers on a targeted basis to extend additional support for those in need and as part of its robust asset quality management process.
Maybank is maintaining its headline KPI (key performance indicator) of a return on equity of between 9.5% and 10% for FY2022, factoring the impact from the one-off prosperity tax announced by the federal government.
Share price of the lender closed one sen higher on the FBMKLCI yesterday, settling at RM8.55.
