KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 25 — Malayan Banking Bhd (Maybank) expects its return on equity (ROE) for this year to be around nine per cent, an improvement over 8.1 per cent in 2020, on continued soft income environment and elevated provisioning, group president and chief executive officer Datuk Abdul Farid Alias said.

He said the bank also expected a pickup in loan growth, tracking the rebound in the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) this year.

Maybank has projected that Malaysia’s economy would expand by 5.1 per cent this year.

“Roughly, our neighbouring countries, Singapore and Indonesia, which are also Maybank’s key home markets, are forecast to rebound at the same rate,” he said during the bank’s virtual press conference on the group’s results for the financial year ended December 31, 2020.

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South-east Asia’s fourth largest bank by assets today announced that its net profit fell to RM6.48 billion compared with RM8.20 billion in FY19 due to significantly higher net impairment losses, owing to the continued impact from the Covid-19 pandemic.

Its revenue eased to RM51.03 billion from RM52.86 billion previously. — Bernama