KUALA LUMPUR (July 1): Alliance Bank Malaysia Bhd said its wholly-owned subsidiary Alliance Investment Bank Bhd (AIBB) has received a vesting order for it to transfer its stockbroking business to Phillip Capital Sdn Bhd.

AIBB received the order from the High Court to transfer the business to Phillip Capital  (formerly known as Phillip Futures Sdn Bhd)  with effect from July 30, the group said in a statement on Friday (July 1).

AIBB and Phillip Capital had signed an agreement in December 2021 for the sale of the former’s stockbroking business to the latter.

“During this transfer, customers can be assured of seamless and uninterrupted service from their existing dealers and remisiers,” Alliance Bank group CEO Joel Kornreich and Phillip Capital group managing director Andy Lim Say Kiat said in Friday’s statement.

Meanwhile, Alliance Bank noted that it had previously completed the transfer of AIBB’s capital markets business to its Islamic banking unit Alliance Islamic Bank Bhd. 

The group also said it will deploy the excess capital from the sale of AIBB's stockbroking business to accelerate growth in its customer, small and medium enterprises, and Islamic banking business.

“We remain focused on serving the personal and business banking needs of business owners, and, by extension, the people important to them — their family, employees, business partners and customers,” Kornreich said.

“Our aim is to achieve 9% market share in the SME segment by FY2026, and have a personal banking relationship with 70% of our business owners,” he said, adding that last year, the bank grew its SME market share to 5%.

Phillip Capital had changed its name from Phillip Futures, in line with the transfer to reflect the company’s business expansion to include stocks and exchange traded funds in its suite of product offerings beyond derivatives.

“This is another step by Phillip Capital towards providing a more comprehensive investment platform to investors, as they become more sophisticated over time and [as] markets of different asset classes evolve to be more interrelated,” Alliance Bank said.

Shares in Alliance Bank finished down two sen or 0.63% at RM3.16 on Friday, giving the group a market capitalisation of RM4.89 billion.