This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on June 17, 2016.

KUALA LUMPUR: After a low-key 10 years in Malaysia, Al Rajhi Banking and Investment Corp (M) Bhd (Al Rajhi Bank Malaysia), is making a fresh attempt to becoming a stronger player in the local Islamic banking space.

The foreign lender, a wholly-owned unit of the world’s largest Islamic bank by assets Al Rajhi Bank of Saudi Arabia, appointed Steve Chen as its new chief executive officer (CEO) two months ago.

The bank had been without a CEO ever since Datuk Azrulnizam Abdul Aziz quit in late 2014.

“We have been here for 10 years and we have had a low profile. This year, we’ve got new management coming in and our strategy is now more profiling and focused marketing. I think we’re coming back to the mainstream,” acting chairman Datuk Nik Norzrul Thani, who is also a director in the bank, told reporters at the launch of its Islamic debit card yesterday.

“Ten years on, we are rebooting ... an Al Rajhi version 2.0, if you like. We’re changing. You’ll see more focus on the corporate and retail segments,” he added.

Al Rajhi Bank Malaysia, which currently has 22 active branches, was set up in October 2006 when the country opened up the local Islamic banking sector to foreign players. However, industry observers say it has yet to really make a mark in the Islamic banking space. It focuses on three main segments — retail banking, treasury and money markets, and corporate investment banking.

According to Chen, the group is in the midst of charting out its business plans, which will be presented to the board for approval soon. In the meantime, he has been bulking up the bank’s corporate and retail banking teams.

When asked about the group’s areas of focus going forward, Chen said it could be broken down into five areas.

“First, we want to accelerate growth. We have identified retail as well as corporate banking as areas where we want to grow, and we are investing in those areas. Second, over the mid to longer term, we want to become an employer of choice, so we are looking at upskilling training programmes for our people to ultimately be able to provide better service to our clients.

“Third, is about customer focus. We are looking at re-engineering the bank internally as well as providing offerings to service our clients better. Fourth, is our digital initiatives ... in line with Bank Negara Malaysia’s call for online banking and mobile banking. So, that’s an area where we’ll be making investments and upgrading our capabilities. And fifth, obviously one of the most important, is execution focus ... ensuring that whatever plans that we have are executed well, with the goal of delivering long-term shareholder returns,” Chen said.

Prior to joining Al Rajhi Bank Malaysia, Chen was the chief operating officer for corporate and structured finance at Hong Leong Bank Bhd. Alan Wee, who joined early last year as the bank’s director of retail banking, is also formerly from Hong Leong Bank.

Meanwhile, Chen said he expects the newly launched Rafahia Islamic debit card to see a take-up of about 20,000 in its first year. The card is touted as Malaysia’s first Islamic debit card that is bundled with worldwide takaful protection of up to RM1 million for 12 months. The card is expected to tap into the more than 233,000 haj and umrah pilgrims from Malaysia for the year 2016, Chen said.

Al Rajhi Bank Malaysia made a higher net profit of RM11.76 million in the financial year ended Dec 31, 2015 (FY15) against RM4.8 million in FY14. Its revenue grew to RM385.27 million from RM356.23 million the year before.