Tuesday February 9, 2010
OCBC Bank to open 10-20 branches
By ZAZALI MUSA
JOHOR BARU: OCBC Bank (M) Bhd plans to open 10 to 20 new branches, including Islamic banking outlets, nationwide within the next two years.
Director and chief executive officer Jeffrey Chew Sun Teong said the bank was now looking for suitable locations for the new branches, including in Sabah and Sarawak.
“It doesn’t matter whether we are opening a conventional or an Islamic branch as our Islamic banking products and services are also available via our conventional branches,’’ he said yesterday.
Chew was speaking to reporters at the opening of OCBC Al-Amin Bank’s Taman Sutera Utama branch, the group’s first Islamic outlet in southern peninsula.
The Taman Sutera branch is also OCBC’s seventh in Johor.
OCBC Al-Amin Bank, the group’s wholly-owned Islamic banking subsidiary, has five branches.
Chew said OCBC was now a foreign bank with the largest number of branches in Johor.
“Our branches in Johor also serve Singaporeans, including the republic’s small and medium enterprises (SMEs) which have operations here,” he said.
He said the opening of two integrated resorts (IR) in Singapore would bring economic spillover to Johor, including the SMEs, and create job opportunities for the locals.
OCBC Al-Amin Bank director and chief executive officer Syed Abdull Aziz Syed Kechik said the prospect was good for Iskandar Malaysia, especially in tourism and real estate sectors.
“We don’t want to miss the opportunities in Iskandar and our presence here is to offer a choice of either Islamic or conventional banking to customers,” he said.
Syed Abdull Aziz also said OCBC would look at southeast Johor, comprising Teluk Rumania and Pengerang, slated to be the regional oil and gas hub by 2013.
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