Malaysia’s CIMB eyes 100,000 Philippine clients by June 2019

Malaysia's CIMB Bank on Tuesday launched its banking operations in the Philippines, eyeing at least 100,000 clients in the first six months of the year.

With its flagship CIMB Bank Philippines Inc., the lender said it hopes to achieve the 100,000 mark through its all-digital and mobile-first platform, said to be the first in the country.

“One hundred thousand is just the baseline forecast for us to review. We want to grow much, much more aggressive than that,” CIMB Philippines CEO Vijay Manoharan said.

“Our goals will exceed that by far. But I just gave you an indication for what our early first check point would look like—100,000,” he added.

With its Philippine operations in place, CIMB completed its footprint in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) region.

CIMB clients will be able to open accounts via the bank’s OCTO mobile application. Their debit cards will then be delivered to them.

“We have our partners that we work with and we access customers through our partner networks as well,” said Manoharan.

“So we have partnerships that will help us reach out to customers, at the same time with social media—the little channels to reach out and talk to the Filipino consumers,” he added.

Deposits may be made through DragonPay which currently has a total of 8,000 customer touchpoints across the country. Clients may also deposit funds through partner establishments such as 7-Eleven.

“Consumers of today and tomorrow need innovative financial solutions that are relevant to their needs as well as help them get ahead and advance their financial well-being, but they don’t necessarily need a physical bank,” Manoharan said.

Moving forward, Manoharan said CIMB Philippines is likely to offer several products such as loans.

“We have launched savings products, we have launched a debit card, we have also launched multiple variants of savings,” he said.

“Then we’ll introduce other products—loans and other products down the road. We’ll start with savings, get the savings out there, and in the near future we’ll also introduce loans for consumers,” Manoharan. —VDS, GMA News