KUALA LUMPUR: RHB Bank Bhd plans to disburse RM31 billion loans to small and medium enterprises by 2021.
Group managing director Datuk Khairussaleh Ramli said this was in line with RHB Bank's overall target to become an SME ecosystem bank by 2022.
Khairussaleh said the RM31 billion target could rank it third in terms of market share in the SME financing segment.
The group currently ranks fourth in the segment with a 9.06 per cent share.
“We are shifting from product proposition to ecosystem play, involving partnerships with technology solutions provider in order to become an SME ecosystem bank by 2020,” Khairussaleh said at a press conference after RHB Bank’s annual general meeting here today.
“We have approved RM7.2 billion in 2017 to support the growth of over 4,000 SMEs in Malaysia. In the next three years, we target to grant more than RM31 billion in new and additional financing which will benefit 18,000 SMEs,” he added.
RHB Bank has connected more than 100,000 SMEs through its Cash Management solutions and SME e-Solution which includes payroll and accounting solutions.
Through the SME ecosystem, the group is poised to connect to 15,000 new SMEs this year.
The SME segment plays a big part in RHB's five year strategic roadmap, FIT@22 to end in 2022 where it envisioned it to be the top three bank in the country.
Khairussaleh also shared that the group was helping several comnpanies with their initial public offerings (IPOs).
"We expect a few IPOs, including the one listed tomorrow whereby we are their joint global coordinator. We still have two or three reasonably big ones in the pipeline,” he said.
Khairussaleh said at least two of the IPOs would happen in the second half of the year with an estimated size of RM750 million each.
He did not name them but said that they are from the consumer products and trading services sectors respectively.