KUALA LUMPUR (Oct 22): Creating a harmonious regulatory framework, providing more freedom in mobilising manpower and information sharing are crucial for cross-border trade and investment, but this seemed to be unlikely to happen in the near term as the 10 member countries are likely to miss the deadline for the economic integration of Asean in 2015.

"There is still a long way to go in term of harmonious framework in Asean," Malayan Banking Bhd (Maybank) group president and chief executive officer Datuk Abdul Farid Alias said during a keynote interview here at Financial Times Asean Economic Summit today.

According to Farid, each of the Asean member countries are now implementing different sets of regulations, resulting in industry players finding it difficult to meet with the various requirements as stipulated.

Citing the banking industry as example, he said the banking industry is facing various issues when comes to regional expansion.

"Each of the member countries have different sets of capital adequacy framework, making it difficult for financial institutions to meet the requirements," he said.

For Maybank, he said, the banking group chose to comply with Bank Negara Malaysia's capital adequacy framework Basel III requirement, which he described as the most "stringent" rule in the region.

Under the Basel III, a financial institution is required to have a 60% minimum liquidity coverage ratio.

Aside from that, he said the group is also prohibited to share customers data with their branches located overseas.

"It would be good if we can share the information within the group, as it could help us to manage our risk better," he said.

"This can also help us to know our customers better. We wanted to impose a standard Know Your Customers (KYC) procedure regionally," he added.

Farid pointed out there are also some constraints in mobilising manpower within the Asean region.

"As a regional organisation, we wanted to post our people around the region. This will help us to further promote our position as a regional organisation, which we wanted to be," he said.

Hence, he called on the Asean member countries to negotiate these matters and come into an acceptable landing for the market.

Going forward, Farid said Maybank has no plans to expand its footprint outside Asean region.

"The infrastructure sector in the Asean region is booming. We will seek more opportunities to finance infrastructure development," he added.

As at 12.30pm midday break, shares in Maybank were traded at RM8.59, down three sen or 0.35%, after some 2.78 million shares changed hands.

It has a market capitalisation of RM82.04 billion.

(Note: The Edge Research's fundamental score reflects a company's profitability and balance sheet strength, calculated based on historical numbers. The valuation score determines if a stock is attractively valued or not, also based on historical numbers. A score of 3 suggests strong fundamentals and attractive valuations.)