MALAYSIA - BANKING - CIMB takes aim at Goldman, JPMorgan

www.btimes.com.my - CIMB Group Holdings Bhd, Southeast Asia’s top-ranked investment bank over the past three years, is taking aim at a bigger market following its acquisition of some of Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc’s operations in Asia.

The Malaysian company can now compete with rivals including Goldman Sachs Group Inc and JPMorgan Chase & Co for Asia- Pacific deals, Chief Executive Officer Nazir Razak said in an interview in Kuala Lumpur. CIMB agreed in April to buy most of Edinburgh-based RBS’s investment banking and cash equities businesses in the region for US$142 million.

The acquisition, which initially seemed to be an “audacious” idea, will complete the bank’s operations and help CIMB boost market capitalization to more than RM100 billion (US$31 billion) by 2015, Nazir said. That’s about 75 percent more than its current value. The Kuala Lumpur-based lender also targets becoming one of the top three Southeast Asian banks by assets and return on equity.  (source)

FINANCE - Malaysian bankers push for Islamic finance to guide banking reforms

LONDON, Oct 8 — The push for reforms to the global financial sector after the recent crisis would gain from studying the principles of Islamic finance, according to leading bankers from Malaysia, the premier hub for this sector.

CIMB group chief executive Datuk Seri Nazir Razak (picture) and Bank Muamalat chairman Tan Sri Munir Majid spearheaded a panel discussion on Islamic banking at the World Muslim Leadership Forum that detailed how the principles of strict collateral, profit and risk-sharing and real economic activity that underpin Islamic financial transactions would help to bring in the required ethics and into conventional financing where sub-prime financing was seen as a leading cause of the global collapse of the last three years.