KUALA LUMPUR (Aug 21): The banking game has changed. This is especially evident in the past one and a half years, with the Covid-19 pandemic accelerating the digital shift as customers shy away from physical branches.

OCBC Malaysia recognises this “new norm” in the banking scene.

“We have decided that going forward, we can grow without necessarily opening new branches if possible,” OCBC Malaysia chief executive officer (CEO) Datuk Ong Eng Bin told The Edge in an exclusive interview.

It is a sign of the times, with the banking industry consolidating branches.

In the past nine years, the number of commercial bank branches nationwide has been reduced by 11% or 229 outlets — from 2,055 in 2011 to 1,826 in 2020.

“As we move deeper into 2021, with the pandemic still very much in the foreground, we expect our digital business to continue to grow as many would prefer to conduct their banking activities online at their own convenience without the need to visit the bank branch,” Ong opined, adding that staff can be retrained to conduct value-added activities.

The data supports this trend. 

On average, Malaysians made 170 e-payment transactions in 2020, compared with 150 in 2019 and 125 in 2018 in the banking system.

The e-payment transaction volume per person nearly doubled in the span of four years from 98 e-payment transactions in 2016 to 170 in 2020.

Internet banking has been growing rapidly, with transaction volume growing from 620 million in 2016 to 1.54 billion in 2020. 

In terms of value, Internet banking transactions jumped from RM5,415 billion to RM8,858 billion in the same period.

With every other bank shifting to digital aggressively, and with digital banks making their way to Malaysian shores soon, what sets OCBC Malaysia’s digital strategies apart from the rest of the industry?

Find out in the Aug 23 issue of The Edge Malaysia weekly.

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