KUALA LUMPUR: Kuwait Finance House Malaysia Bhd (KFH Malaysia) has appointed six new senior executives, in a management shake-up aimed at bolstering its performance.
The six are Momtaz M Saif (chief strategy, project management office and communications officer), Julio Francis Lobo (chief retail banking officer), Khalid Jaafar (chief credit officer), Mark Peile (director of business performance and analytics), Liu Shoua Fan (director of business process re-engineering and innovation) and Dilip DS (director of sales and distribution).
It is understood that except for Lobo’s and Khalid’s positions, the other four are newly created positions.
In a press release yesterday, KFH Malaysia said the new line-up is to “revitalise its efforts to becoming a formidable Islamic banking player in Malaysia”.
“The new management line-up is a testament to the shareholders’ commitment in Kuwait to the growth of the bank in Malaysia,” KFH Malaysia chief executive officer David Power said, adding that he was confident that the new line-up would take the bank to the next level of growth.
“I look forward to KFH Malaysia taking its rightful place in providing best possible Islamic products and services to our customers,” said Power, who took up the top job at KFH Malaysia in August last year.
Power was previously the group chief retail and private banking officer at Kuwait Finance House KSC, which wholly-owns KFH Malaysia.
KFH Malaysia, which started operations in August 2005 as Malaysia’s first foreign Islamic bank, slipped into a net loss of RM37.18 million for the financial year ended Dec 31, 2015 (FY15) after three straight years of profitability.
For the first nine months of FY16, however, it reported a small net profit of RM1.31 million as compared to a net loss of RM5.92 million in the same period the year before. The third quarter of FY16, however, still saw KFH Malaysia post losses. It made a net loss of RM28.4 million compared with a loss of RM28.2 million in the same quarter a year earlier, while operating revenue grew 4.3% to RM121.05 million.
As at end-September 2016, KFH’s total assets stood at RM9.61 billion.
Other foreign Islamic banks that have been set up in Malaysia after KFH Malaysia include Saudi Arabia-owned Al Rajhi Banking Investment Corp (Malaysia) Bhd and Asian Finance Bank Bhd.