“Within a short span of four years, CIMB Islamic has successfully rolled out various innovative and ground-breaking products such as the world's first istisna' sukuk (bond), the world's first musyarakah asset backed securities (ABS) and sukuk, the world's first global US-dollar Islamic commercial papers/medium-term notes programme, and the Islamic profit rate swap, which was the world's first Islamic derivative product in the market,” he said in an interview.
Since the merger between Commerce Tijari Bank (the Islamic banking subsidiary of Bumiputra-Commerce Bank) and CIMB Islamic (CIMB Investment Bank's Islamic division), CIMB Islamic has transformed into an Islamic universal bank with the inclusion of Islamic consumer banking in its stable of products and services.
CIMB Islamic, he noted, was making headway in the competitive consumer market and was considered as the fastest growing Islamic bank in the country.
Badlisyah said that from zero base, CIMB Islamic now had 76 branches nationwide and would expand to 383 branches probably in the next six months.
He added that apart from the traditional retail products like savings account, current account and fixed deposits, the bank had also, earlier this year, launched other Islamic financing facilities such as property and machinery financing, the full suite of trade financing products as well as treasury services.
According to Badlisyah, the bank has close to 15 consumer banking products and is looking to have up to 63 Islamic products in total within the next three years, depending on the market demand.
As a policy, CIMB Islamic plans to have an Islamic version of all conventional banking products that the CIMB Group has.
He said that with Shariah Niaga, the group's Islamic franchise under its Indonesian subsidiary PT Bank Niaga, CIMB Islamic was poised to further strengthen and expand its business regionally.
At present, CIMB Islamic was already present in Brunei and Singapore, he added.
CIMB Islamic has also expanded to the Middle East. Badlisyah said through the group's Bahrain outfit, CIMB-Kanoo Islamic Investment Co BSC (C), CIMB Islamic was upbeat it would be able to bridge the dynamic markets of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and the vibrant Far-East economies.
CIMB Islamic recently launched Malaysia's first Islamic equity-linked structured product known as the Islamic All-Stars Global Restricted Mudharabah Structured Investment-i. The product was its first launched simultaneously in Malaysia and Singapore.
The product provides 100% capital protection if held to its five-year maturity period with returns linked to the performance of 20 global blue-chip multinationals including Nestle, Nike, Colgate-Palmolive, Samsung Electronics, PepsiCo, Procter & Gamble, and Microsoft.
The bank is targeting to secure RM350mil from investors within the three-week sales campaign (starting from Jan 24) targeted at the mass affluent.
The indicative gross profit rate in the first year is 8%, while for the second to the fifth year, the gross annual profit rates are estimated at between 8.5 and 10%.
The Securities Commission has set a minimum investment amount of RM250,000 for the product in Malaysia.
The Singapore government has not set a minimum limit, but the CIMB group has put the limit at S$10,000 (RM22,800). |
