Maybank a potential superbank

Thursday June 12, 2008

KUALA LUMPUR: Malayan Banking Bhd (Maybank) has been named as one of the banks with the potential to make it to the “superbank” list.

Retail Banker International (RBI), a London-based banking industry newsletter, said Maybank, together with other banks like Standard Chartered (StanChart) and OCBC, were expected to rise and become “superbanks” soon.

“Other banks to watch out for include ICICI, ANZ, Siam Commercial Bank and Australia's Big Four and Japan's major banks,” Hugh Fasken, editor of RBI, said in a statement yesterday.

Fasken said research conducted by FBI showed that the rise of “superbanks” was due to globalisation, consolidation and a focus on distribution that created groups with over 10,000 branches and automated teller machine (ATM) network.

Last March, Maybank acquired 55.7% equity in Bank Internasional Indonesia for RM4.8bil and would made an offer for the remaining 44.3%, which would bring up the total acquisition cost to RM8.6bil.

Some analysts believed that such a move was important to Maybank in its efforts to become more competitive, strong and an established financial institution in the region.

Besides Maybank, other banks had also made moves into the regional banking market.

They included CIMB Bank Bhd, which had taken a controlling interest in GK Goh Securities, a Singapore stock broking firm, on June 2005 with a total investment of RM555mil. Others are AmBank, RHB and Public Bank.

Fasken said there were now over 10 banking groups worldwide with more than 10,000 branches.

“However, only five of the top 30 “superbanks” hail from Asia. These include Chinese banks such as Agricultural Bank of China and Commercial Bank of China, which top the list due to their vast branch networks,” he said.

Fasken said State Bank of India passed the mark when it opened its 10,000th outlet in April and also it had plans to open a further 2,000 by end-2009.

On why there were so few Asian superbanks, Fasken said this was due to the lack of branch networks.

“Maybank, Singapore's DBS, the Australian Big Four, India's ICICI and Thailand's Siam Commercial Bank, for example, simply do not have large enough branches or ATMs.

“However, the Asia-Pacific region is well represented in the top 15, with Chinese banks dominating the top of the table,” he said. – Bernama