TheEdge
KUALA LUMPUR: RHB Bank Bhd aims to step up its wealth management business by the financial year ending Dec 31, 2008, as customers look to protect and grow their money in the uncertain financial environment.
The bank’s head of retail, Renzo Viegas, said: “We are building the infrastructure and should be ready to do something quite actively by year-end.
“We’re also in the process of hiring a team, defining who our ‘infinity customers’ — high net worth individuals — will be, conducting risk profiling and assessing investment appetite.”
The bank, part of RHB Capital Bhd’s banking group, aimed to grow its existing wealth management business to between four and five times its current size, Viegas told The Edge Financial Daily.
He said in the current climate of unattractive investment returns, customers wanted to protect their money, while still looking for upside.
“I think the wealth management business will drive growth in our financial year ending Dec 31, 2009 (FY09),” he said.
Meanwhile, Viegas said with the softening economy, RHB Bank’s retail operations, which included consumer banking, small and medium-sized enterprise banking, insurance, and finance, would focus on taking market share, expecting to increase the market share of most of its products by between one and two percentage points in FY09.
The bank currently had between 6.5% and 8% market share for most of its products, he added.
He said for example, the bank’s market share of credit cards was under 7%, mortgages in the high 6%, its SME trade business 13%.
Viegas added in the first eight months of FY08, the bank had doubled the volume of home loans it approved and accepted by customers to RM3.3 billion and RM2.6 billion, respectively, against RM1.6 billion and RM1.2 billion in the same period last year.
Meanwhile, RHB Bank’s credit card loans growth was expected to remain at between 15% and 16%, he said.
He said while customers were looking to manage their cash flow and reduce debt burdens due to the current economic environment, the bank had yet to see customers’ repayment of loans negatively affected.
The bank was, however, monitoring this situation closely and expected repayment patterns to depend on the country’s fourth quarter 2008 and first quarter 2009 economic statistics.
Consumer and commercial deposits, meanwhile, were expected to grow by up to 4% and 10%, respectively, totalling RM1.6 billion, this year, he said.
Going forward, Viegas expected the bank’s growth to continue to be driven by its product offerings, and its bancassurance business, while also seeking growth through alternate banking channels.
RHB Bank was expected to enter into strategic tie-ups with two or three banking and non-banking parties by year-end in an effort to step up sales, he said.
On possible mergers and acquisitions, he said the RHB banking group would perform them at the right price, and was on the lookout for targets internationally, particularly in Asean. It currently has operations in Singapore, Thailand and Brunei.
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