Maybank

MAYBANK has emerged as number 13th in Bloomberg Markets magazine's third annual ranking of the world's strongest banks, according to reports published on the Bloomberg website.

This achievement has placed Maybank in the company of an elite global group of banks with assets of over USD100 billion and evaluated based on capital strength, asset quality, strong reserves as well as deposit and funding strength. Maybank is the first and only Malaysian bank in the list.

Maybank President and Chief Executive Officer Dato' Sri Abdul Wahid Omar has attributed the strong ranking to tough supervision by Bank Negara Malaysia and new stress testing and risk-control measures instituted inside the bank.

"The central bank has always adopted a very pragmatic supervision approach. Whenever there are signs of problems, Bank Negara has never been hesitant to intervene," he said.

The annual ranking results were also based on banks' cost efficiency and risk management, areas where Maybank scored highly.

Qatar National Bank placed 1st in Bloomberg Markets ranking, while Singapore's Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp (OCBC) came in second.

Maybank is Malaysia's largest bank by asset size, and is currently ranked #4 in Southeast Asia. In 2008, Maybank began its regional expansion with the acquisition of the controlling stake in PT Bank Internasional Indonesia (BII). According to Dato' Sri Wahid, the bank also aims to extend its footprint to all 10 Asean members as the region moves towards the planned economic integration by 2015.

For the financial year ended 31 December 2012, Maybank earned 30% of its pre-tax profit from overseas operations, the bulk of which from Indonesia and Singapore.

At present, Maybank has an international network of over 2,200 offices in 20 countries namely Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, Brunei Darussalam, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Papua New Guinea, Hong Kong SAR and People's Republic of China, Bahrain, Uzbekistan, Myanmar, Pakistan, India, Saudi Arabia, Laos, Great Britain and the United States of America. Maybank offers an extensive range of products and services, which includes commercial banking, investment banking, Islamic banking, stock broking, insurance and takaful and asset management. It has over 47,000 employees serving more than 22 million customers worldwide.