KUALA LUMPUR, May 31 — Alliance Bank Malaysia Bhd’s net profit for the financial year ended March 31, 2021 (FY2021) declined to RM358.79 million from RM424.26 million in FY2020.
Revenue, however, increased to RM1.82 billion from RM1.69 billion.
In a filing with Bursa Malaysia today, the bank said the lower profit of RM65.5 million or 15.4 per cent year-on-year (y-o-y) was largely due to higher credit cost as a result of provisioning, mostly in the consumer portfolio.
“Nevertheless, pre-provision operating profit was up by 15.3 per cent, mainly driven by net financing income growth, lower cost of funds and tighter cost management,” it said.
Furthermore, it said gross loans and advances stood at RM44.1 billion, recording an increase of 1.1 per cent y-o-y, driven by the small and medium enterprise (SME) and consumer segments which grew by 6.4 per cent and 0.4 per cent, respectively.
However, it said the bank recorded other operating income of RM456.7 million, higher by RM90.9 million or 24.8 per cent y-o-y despite the challenging external environment.
“The higher revenue came from higher treasury and investment income, helped by increases in bond prices and brokerage and wealth management income,” it said.
For outlook, the bank said it would focus on growing the business via the following three key focus areas such as acquiring more customers where it intended to scale up in its core segments of SME and consumer banking by enhancing and equipping relationship managers with digital tools to serve high-value customers.
“Capitalising on our consumer and business banking franchises, whereby we will focus on accelerating cross selling value propositions to our customers to increase market penetration and generate fee-based income.
“Enhancing productivity and efficiencies by streamlining processes, automating through digital tools/channels, centralising functions and improving branch productivity,” it said.
In a separate statement, group chief executive officer Joel Kornreich said the bank aspires to be a top four SME Bank in Malaysia by FY2025 by doubling its loan market share in the SME segment.
“We aim to be The Preferred Bank of Business Owners and maintain our top position in customer net promoter score by serving the financial needs of business owners and their stakeholders,” he added. — Bernama
