Hong Leong Bank Bhd (HLB) strives to be the community bank of choice in Sabah and Sarawak with the launch of a new community banking model aimed at strengthening the bank's presence here.

This came after the bank's senior management team came together in Kuching on February 18, to share their steps in launching the new banking model and their rationale behind this move.

"The launch of our new community banking model effectively means we want to strengthen our senior leadership roles and get them more involved in our day to day business activities" explained Domenic Fuda, group managing director and chief executive officer of HLB.

"Unlike the past when we ran corporate banking and consumer banking separately, we want to bring them together under one leadership and create a holistic Hong Leong Bank within Sabah and Sarawak.”

Thus from now on, Fuda said all HLB business operations in Sarawak will be placed under the leadership of Moses Wong King Kiu, senior regional head of Sarawak.

Meanwhile, Sim Yu Kiong, senior regional head of Sabah will take the helm of all HLB activities in Sabah.

"We aim to deepen the relationship with our customers by getting to know our community better and will try our best to better serve them" Wong shared enthusiastically.

Wong expects the transition into this new model to be a smooth one thanks to help and expertise from HLB's headquarters.

Fuda explained that the new model's pilot initiative was previously implemented in Penang last year.

Their previous experience with it has allowed the bank to gained valuable information to help the Sabah and Sarawak transitions smoothly into the new banking model.

"Using this knowledge, we will be applying it to Sarawak and Sabah and other states to help get momentum going fairly quickly this time around.

"What has been encouraging about our Penang move was that we observed that when the organisations have been coming together, the business results in Penang this financial year has been extremely encouraging across all business segments" Fuda shared.

Since the new community banking model's implementation in Penang, the bank reported a 20 percent growth in their new bank retail corporate banking customer base, a 7 percent increase in loan base, a 9 per cent growth in business corporate banking finances, and a 24 percent increase in deposit.

"The pilot has proven that the presence of senior leadership on the ground has allowed for better synergies between the retail and corporate banking teams, faster business growth as well as greater customisation in terms of solutions for our customers; this is the outcome we are expecting" Fuda said.

He went on to stress that the three main objectives he wishes to meet with the introduction of the new model would be improved community presence, better customer service, and better branding of the Bank.