By KEVIN WONG / Pic By ISMAIL CHE RUS

Affin Bank Bhd is targeting a loan growth rate between 6% and 7% this year, driven by its consumer, small and medium enterprise (SME) commercial and both corporate and the public sector banking segments.

Affin Holdings Bhd group CEO Kamarul Ariffin Mohd Jamil said the group is looking at a stronger performance year in 2018.

“The growth will be coming from the three areas, unlike last year where growth mainly came from our consumer and mortgage business segments,” he told reporters at a press conference after the group’s AGM in Kuala Lumpur yesterday.

The group is also expecting about 9% to 10% growth in deposits from customers for this fiscal year ending Dec 31, 2018 (FY18), which would also be driven by these three segments.

“At the same time, we are working towards rebalancing our loan and financing portfolio to a mix of 50:50 between our consumers and business segments from our mix of consumer at 49%, SME at 7% and corporate at 42% as of December 2017,” he added.

On the new government’s intention to review infrastructure projects, Kamarul said the company is not overly concerned, saying that the review is mainly on existing, not for new projects.

Additionally, Affin Bank chairman Tan Sri Dr Mohd Zahidi said the banking group will continue to remain impartial and support the newly elected government.

In terms of its investment banking segment, Aff in Hwang Investment Bank Bhd will be more aggressive in rolling out products, growing its fee income with value-added businesses and investing in digitalisation.

It has been three years since the merger between Affin Holdings and HwangDBS (M) Bhd where the first two years were spent essentially on organising the policies, implementing proper risk management and a voluntary separation scheme.

Affin Hwang Investment Bank group MD Datuk Maimoonah Hussain said the investment banking segment management had managed to settle down in 2017 as the risk management has been properly put in place.

“With that said, we will become more aggressive in building our businesses,” she said.

Affin Hwang Investment Bank recorded a pretax profit increase of 40.3% to RM183.8 million in 2017 compared to RM131 million achieved in the previous year.

Correspondingly, profit attributable to equity holders increased from RM85.7 million in 2016 to RM122.9 million in 2017.

Earnings per share increased to 15.75 sen against 10.99 sen the previous year and return on equity was higher at 8.7% against 6.8% previously.