KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 5 — Malaysia’s EON Bank expects its loan book to expand by 5-6 per cent this year even as the economy is shrinking as low interest rates drive up demand for consumer loans, especially mortgages, said a top executive.
“It has been pretty good for the group bearing in mind the economy had not been so favourable,” said Michael Lor, head of consumer banking at EON Bank Group, which is a unit of EON Capital Bhd
“For the consumer side of the business, we are humming along pretty well since January and we will probably end the year at around 9-10 per cent of growth,” he said in an interview.
Corporate lending remains sluggish and the bank, valued at about US$1.08 billion (RM3.94 billion) on the stock market, plans to speed up this year the provisions for some of its corporate loan accounts in the Middle East, said Lor.
“We are in the progress of doing it. We have two Middle East loans that we are accelerating our provision,” he said.
“We think that when our earnings and revenue remain strong, we then have the ability to expedite the provision.”
Lor declined to disclose the amount of the loans involved, saying he could not discuss the details because they are currently being restructured. — Reuters
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