INDONESIA - BANKING - Maybank turns in record performance

www.btimes.com.my - Top lender Malayan Banking Bhd (Maybank) posted a 20 per cent
increase in net profit for the last financial year comprising just six months and announced a better-than-expected final dividend.
 
It was a shorter financial year as the group changed its year-end to December 31 from June 30. (source)

INDONESIA - BANKING - Maybank plans to further boost BII operations

www.thejakartapost.com - Malayan Banking Berhad (Maybank) will expand the operations of Indonesian subsidiary PT Bank Internasional Indonesia Tbk (BII), in a bid to take advantage of solid economic growth in the country, the financial group’s president and chief executive officer Abdul Wahid Omar says.

Omar said that Indonesia’s high economic potential has made it possible for financial institutions, such as BII, to strengthen business in the country. He also expected that the Indonesian bank would become one of the main sources of revenues to Maybank in the future. (source)

MALAYSIA - OPINION - Focus on similarities of global Islamic finance systems

ISLAMIC finance is growing in popularity even in non-Islamic countries and to perform better over conventional banking amidst the global financial crisis, markets have to focus on the similarities and not just the differences of Islamic financial systems in different countries.

"Currently if you look in the context of Islamic finance in the global world, Islamic finance is spread over the world, originally from Malaysia, Southeast Asia and the Middle East, now it has gone to Europe and Japan and Australia, so it has globalised," said Professor Dato' Dr Mohd Azmi Omar, head of the International Islamic University Malaysia, who spoke at the conference on Envisioning the Future of the Islamic World in the Era of Uncertainties: Views of Scholars at the University Brunei Darussalam yesterday. (source)

INDONESIA - BANKING - Maybank To Increase Branches In Indonesia To 450 Over Next Two Years

KUALA LUMPUR, July 22 (Bernama) -- Malayan Banking Bhd (Maybank) plans to increase its branches under the group in Indonesia to 450 over the next two years from the present 330.

President/Chief Executive Officer Datuk Seri Abdul Wahid Omar said the plan was in sync with the bank's focus to expand in the Asean region, particularly Indonesia, Singapore and the Philippines.

"We have defined our focus which is Asean. We will concentrate on that. (source)

BANKING - Maybank needs more time to cut BII stake

Malayan Banking Bhd Malaysia’s biggest lender by assets, plans to ask Indonesia’s regulator for an extension to sell down its stakes in PT Bank Internasional Indonesia, Chief Executive Officer Datuk Seri Abdul Wahid Omar said in an interview in Kuala Lumpur today. (full story)

BANKING - Maybank's Half Year Profit Soars To RM2.97 Billion, 28 Sen Dividend Announced

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 21 (Bernama) -- Malayan Banking Bhd reported a 16 per cent rise in its group pre-tax profit of RM2.97 billion for the first six months financial period ended Dec 31, 2010 compared with RM2.56 billion in the previous corresponding period. (source)

BANKING - Malaysia's Maybank wants to grow Islamic finance business

SINGAPORE, September  3, 2010 (AFP) - Malaysia's largest lender Maybank on Friday announced plans to expand its Islamic finance business in Singapore and Indonesia to tap the markets' demand for such services.

In Indonesia, home to the world's largest Muslim population, the bank will open at least one new branch a week to increase its network from 290 to 450 eventually, Maybank chief executive Abdul Wahid Omar said.