CIMB is crowned Malaysia’s Best Digital Bank 2018, and Best Retail Bank for third consecutive year

23 March 2019

CIMB also garnered awards for ‘Retail Banker of the Year in Asia Pacific 2019’ and ‘Asia’s Leader in Loans’

Kuala Lumpur - CIMB Bank Berhad (“the Bank” or “CIMB”) recently received a slew of prestigious awards for its Consumer banking business. The Asian Banker not only crowned CIMB as Malaysia’s Best Digital Bank 2018, and Best Retail Bank for the third consecutive year; but also named Samir Gupta, CIMB Group’s Consumer Banking CEO, as Retail Banker of the Year in Asia Pacific 2019, which recognises the exceptional achievements of a best-in-class leader in the region’s retail banking industry. CIMB has also been ranked one of the top 10 banks in Asia Pacific in Asian Banker’s league table, from seventeenth place previously.

ASEAN’s fifth largest banking group by assets also garnered the title Asia’s Leader in Loans at the IDC Financial Insights Innovation Awards 2019, for its Consumer Banking’s innovative CIMB 1-Minute Financing InstaApproval, which was recognised for its responsiveness to market needs, effectiveness of deployment, market response and long-term business viability.

Commenting on the wins, Tengku Dato’ Sri Zafrul Aziz, Group CEO, CIMB Group, said, “Our thriving Consumer banking franchise in ASEAN today is the result of our strong initiative to develop CIMB as a universal bank, and these awards prove how far we have pushed our own boundaries to deliver great digital banking products seamlessly to our retail customers, through smart data analytics and AI. These awards will spur us on to deepen our customer-centricity, which is one of the five identified pillars in CIMB’s next mid-term growth plan, Forward23. Our customers’ continued trust will also drive us to continually improve our value proposition for all 14 million of them across ASEAN.”

The Bank’s digital push was ramped up in 2018 with its adoption of the first big data platform in Malaysia, where it deployed open source software supported by a data science centre of intelligence, to enable better insights and smart, timely, contextual response to customers’ needs.  

Both Asian Banker and IDC have employed rigorous criteria in evaluating potential winners for their awards. The Asian Banker, for example, took into account not just the Bank’s operating profit growth over several years, but also metrics like productivity, cost-efficiency, effective use of data analytics for best-in-class CX, and risk management.