Alliance Bank to streamline businesses

PETALING JAYA: Alliance Bank Malaysia Bhd yesterday announced that its subsidiary Alliance Investment Bank Bhd has entered into a conditional business sale & purchase agreement with Phillip Futures Sdn Bhd for the sale of its stockbroking business.

The bank will also enter into a stockbroking partnership arrangement with PhillipCapital Group, the parent group of Phillip Futures. This will enable the bank’s customers to gain access to regional trading platforms and a broad range of global investment products.

The excess capital from the sale of the stockbroking business will be re-deployed to accelerate growth in its consumer, SME and Islamic banking businesses.

Meanwhile, Alliance Investment Bank’s capital markets business will be transferred to the bank’s other subsidiary Alliance Islamic Bank Bhd. As a result, Alliance Islamic Bank will be one of the few local Islamic banks with in-house capabilities to serve business clients with comprehensive corporate and capital markets solutions.

The bank expects to conclude the corporate exercise in the first half of 2022.

As part of the bank’s broader vision to be the preferred bank of business owners, it will invest to significantly scale up its SME business.

“Our SME banking business has consistently outpaced the industry’s growth over the past five years. We aim to be among the top four banks in SME market share in Malaysia,” said Alliance Bank group CEO Joel Kornreich.