KUALA LUMPUR (May 5): Malaysia Building Society Bhd (MBSB) will continue to eye merger opportunities to pave its way to graduate as a full-fledge financial institution.

"There are institutions that we can engage. Not necessarily Islamic banks, (but) even conventional banks. We can try to convert the licence to be able to operate Islamic banking businesses," MBSB president cum chief executive officer Datuk Ahmad Zaini Othman told reporters after the group's extraordinary general meeting (EGM) today.

Ahmad Zaini also stressed that the group's aspiration remains firm, which is to operate as an Islamic bank.

"We are closing the gap (to become a bank) now in terms of capital, corporate governance, operations and credit. Although we have some conventional financing assets, but we can always put them in a separate outfit.

"Anyway, we are also converting some of these conventional assets into Islamic, but we can't do everything at once, because that would be very costly," he said.

Earlier at the EGM, MBSB shareholders approved the resolution for a rights issue to raise RM2 billion to beef up the group's capital position.

As at 4.11pm, MBSB shares were traded down one sen or 0.78% at RM1.27, with 919,000 shares transacted. Its market capitalisation stood at RM3.61 billion.