CIMB Group transformed into a universal bank from 2005 to 2007, and restructuring had improved its efficiency. This brought significant improvements to its financial performance, with the group’s ROE increasing from 8.89% in 2005 to 20.05% in 2007, though the 2007 figure was partly the result of one-off gains. By 2014, however, the group’s ROE was back down to 9.2%. This was unusually low considering its ROE had ranged from 15% to 17% between 2009 and 2013. This was primarily due to the poor performance of the Indonesian subsidiary, CIMB Niaga, though the poor performance of the Malaysian wholesale banking operations was also a contributing factor. The Malaysian retail banking operations had, however, consistently increased their contribution to the group’s pre-tax profits. In February 2015 Zafrul Aziz was appointed CIMB Group CEO and executive director. The question was, should he focus on further growing the consumer banking operations? Or should he focus instead on improving efficiency and reducing costs in the consumer bank? What should his strategy be for wholesale banking, which seemed to have been on pause for the last few years?
