TARGETED SUBSCRIBERS: Photo shows a Bank Islam employee holding up the Visa platinum credit cards after its launch yesterday. Bank Islam expects to rope in between 25,000 and 30,000 new subscribers for this card by year-end. — Bernama photo
KUALA LUMPUR: Bank Islam Malaysia Bhd sees the new regulation introduced by the Bank Negara Malaysia recently has no negative impact on the bank’s consumer financing segment.
Its business development director Khairul Kamarudin said Bank Islam, in fact, is optimistic of achieving between 10 per cent and 20 per cent growth in the segment this year.
“We welcome the new regulation by Bank Negara.
“We do not expect to see a deterioration in our numbers, if it occurs, it would be marginal not significant,” he told reporters after launching the bank’s new visa platinum credit card here yesterday.
In a move to reduce household debt, Bank Negara announced a new regulation last Friday to cap the maximum tenure of 10 years for financing for personal use and a maximum of 35 years for financing granted for the purchase of residential and non-residential properties.
The central bank also prohibits the offering of pre-approved personal financing products.
The measures, which take effect immediately, complement the earlier measures introduced since 2010.
Khairul said 95 per cent of the bank’s housing loans borrowers have loan tenures of below 35 years whule its personal loan segment only offers a maximum tenure of 15 years, compared to other banks which offer personal loans tenure of more than 20 years.
He also pointed out that banks need to improvise and strengthen their distribution channels in order to ensure sustainable growth in their consumer financing segment.
“For banks like Bank Islam who have these channels in place, we may not see any deterioration in the numbers month-on-month because the channels must be in place,” said Khairul.
Meanwhile, Bank Islam expects to rope in between 25,000 and 30,000 new subscribers for its newly launched Visa platinum credit card-i by year-end.
Khairul said the bank has seen demand shifting to the premium cards segment from mid-to-lower cards since early this year.
“For the premier cards, we saw the increase.
“It used to be 70:30 ratio, 70 for the middle to lower income while 30 for the premier cards. Now, lately we have seen the trend, it is going towards higher income.
“It is an opportune time for us to ride the wave,” he said.
Bank Islam has 2,000 active platinum cardholders to date. — Bernama