KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 7 — Bank Islam Malaysia Bhd is targeting to extend RM1 billion in financing to healthcare professionals in the year ahead through collaborations with six healthcare associations.

The bank today inked six memorandums of understandings ( MoUs) with the Malaysian Medical Association, Ibnu Sina’s Medical Charity Organisation of Malaysia, Malaysian Pharmaceutical Society, Association of Malaysian Optometrists, Malaysian Private Dental Practitioners’ Association and Veterinary Association Malaysia.

The MoUs are aimed at providing total banking solutions to complement the needs of members of the associations.

Chief executive officer, Mohd Muazzam Mohamed said the partnership would create a bigger room for exploration and a better understanding of financial needs in regard to capitalisation of expertise for mutual benefit.

"There are about 18,000 members across the associations and based on a hypothesis of their needs during the current economic climate we are targeting to provide financing to about 12,000 healthcare professionals and entrepreneurs.

"This is an increase of 5,000 to 6,000 more from 7,500 members who had already taken their financing facilities with us,” he told reporters after the signing of the MoUs here today.

He said Bank Islam is known to be a strong player in the retail segment with two of its most significant retail portfolio being government servants and employees of government linked companies (GLCs).

"Hence the collaboration will provide us with the opportunity to venture into a new market segment, that is, the professional group, thus further strengthening Bank Islam’s reputation in the market.

"Through the signing today, we aim to provide an added value to our customers by understanding their specific business needs, in giving them a more personalised banking solution,” he said.

He noted that the bank was also cognisant of other professionals such as accountants, engineers, architects and surveyors’ contributions to Malaysia’s economy and is focusing on their needs as well.

On the automatic moratorium which ends at the end of this month, Muazzam said the bank had already identified and contacted the customers who lost their jobs or had their salary reduced as a result of the movement control order.

He said the bank had also opened up various channels and simplified their procedures for customers who are still in need of further assistance; however, the number that had responded is very small.

Bank Islam, he said has about 380,000 retail customers and over 1,000 business customers.

For the retail segment, he said since the bulk of customers were government sectors and GLCs which did not experience redundancy and pay cut, the bank expected only a small number of vulnerable customers.

He said the bank to date only saw 11,000 to 12,000 applications for moratorium extension, which was much lower than anticipated, and expect more to come forward towards the end of September.

As for the business segment involving RM1.8 billion in total financing, only about 70 per cent of the customers had taken up the automatic moratorium; to date, only 150 customers had applied for further financial assistance, Muazzam added. — Bernama