Bank Muamalat targets 20% growth in gold business this year

KUALA LUMPUR: Bank Muamalat Malaysia Bhd is targeting 20% growth in its gold business this year with sales of RM110 million, said CEO Datuk Mohd Redza Shah Abdul Wahid.
Since offering gold in its physical form two years ago and a gold account last year, the bank has sold 500kg of the precious metal worth RM90 million to date. Of this, half is physical gold and half is via the gold account. The bank has about 32,000 gold account customers.
“Gold is a popular form of investment that the public is looking at. We continue to have campaigns in terms of gold. Our gold business is not only in deposits but also in ar-rahnu (pawn). If you buy physical gold, you can pawn it when you need the money,” he told reporters at the Bank Muamalat Corporate Raya 2018 event here yesterday.
“There’s no reason for people to be going into the various gold schemes because a bank is providing this service to you. You can do so via your account with various banks, especially Islamic banks as well. Gold is part of our business plan and part of us in terms of educating the public in terms of alternative investments,” said Redza.
He said during times of market volatility, one should diversify investments and consider gold as an alternative form of investments.
Earlier, Bank Muamalat held a prize-giving ceremony for the Oh Yeah! Hartawan Emas Deposit Campaign, which offered gold bars worth over RM1 million in the form of 10g gold minted bar for 308 monthly winners and 1kg gold bar (worth RM180,000 per gold bar) for three grand prize winners, during the seven-month campaign period. The campaign attracted 12,107 new customers to open accounts totalling RM43.14 million.
Redza said the deposit-taking business is more challenging, and it aims for a 5%-10% growth this year.
Both conventional and Islamic banks have been aggressively wooing deposits. Retail, being the key target market, enjoys attractive propositions such as higher profit rates, campaigns with lucrative prizes, loyalty rewards, and account-opening freebies.
Redza said: “We (banks) are fighting for deposits to garner more financing. We’ve various deposits campaigns and one of it is to give a high return to customers and we raised RM1.2 billion in fixed deposits last year.”
He said the bank wants to see the new government support the financial industry in terms of providing various incentives in the coming Budget, which will spur economic growth.
“The new governor will continue with existing policies and we believe all the policies are stable for the financial services market. We don’t believe there will be major changes. Even if there are, it would be for good corporate governance,” he added.