KUALA LUMPUR: Malayan Banking Bhd posted record net profit of RM8.11bil in the financial year ended Dec 31, 2018 boosted mainly by higher loans growth, lower overhead costs as well as lower provisioning.

Maybank, Southeast Asia’s fourth largest bank by assets, announced on Tuesday net profit rose by 7.9% from the RM7.52bil in FY17. Pre-tax profit increased by 8% to RM10.91bil from RM10.10bil a year ago.

Its revenue increased by 3.8% to RM47.32bil from RM45.58bil. It announced a dividend of 32 sen for the final quarter.

In the fourth quarter, its net profit rose by 9.1% to RM2.33bil from RM2.13bil while revenue increased by 3.8% to RM12.33bil from RM11.78bil.

Maybank chairman, Datuk Mohaiyani Shamsudin said the results reflected the underlying strength and resilience of the group, which had to contend with an extremely challenging year in 2018. 

“Our strategy of growing responsibly, while managing expenses and pricing in a disciplined manner, were key factors that enabled us to remain on a steady growth trajectory despite the heightened volatility in global markets,” she said. 

Mohaiyani also said the proposed final single-tier dividend of 32 sen per share would be made under its dividend reinvestment plan. It comprises a 15 sen cash portion and a 17 sen electable portion which can be reinvested into new ordinary shares or paid in cash.

“Together with the 25 sen interim dividend declared earlier, the full year dividend payout of 57 sen per share amounts to RM6.3bil or 77.3% of net profit. 

“The total dividend payout also translates into a higher dividend yield of 6.0% (vs 5.6% in 2017), again placing Maybank as one of the banks offering the highest dividend yields in the region,” she said.

Group president and CEO Datuk Abdul Farid Alias said the group continued to benefit from its strong franchise in the region as well as its strong fundamentals, which gave it the capacity to navigate through the challenging year.

“We remain cautious over the global operating environment given continued geopolitical concerns as well as volatility in commodity prices, although we expect greater stability in the domestic market arising from measures being put in place to ensure sustainable growth,” he said. 

“We believe we can leverage business opportunities in ASEAN where the economies will show respectable growth, while at the same time, benefit from our focus on digitalisation which will help us achieve better efficiencies and new frontiers in customer experience.”