Hong Leong Bank
Chief executive Domenic Fuda hasn’t just future-proofed HLB with his mantra of “digital at the core”, he’s also saving it money while earning more too.
This digital transformation is a facelift, Fuda says, that’s not just designed to shore up HLB’s defences from franchise-killing fintechs, but to position HLB as Malaysia’s leading digital bank in the 21st century – and stay there.
Overheads at HLB were down 3% this year while 34% of digital retail customers bought products they didn’t in the old, non-digital HLB. As Citi banking analyst Robert Kong puts it, Fuda’s comprehensive digitalization of HLB “means not only the transformation of the customer experience, but middleware and back-end systems as well.”
By February this year, HLB reported that mobile and internet banking transactions, made in English, Malay and Mandarin, make up 72% of all transactions.