Those trends helped CIMB Group Holdings, Malaysia's second-biggest lender, post a record quarterly profit a day before. Malayan Banking Bhd (Maybank) reported on Thursday a net profit of 1.70 billion ringgit ($397.52 million) for January-March compared to 1.43 billion ringgit a year ago. That beat the 1.2 billion ringgit average estimate of three analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters.
Its loans grew 10.1 percent over the same quarter of last year, led by Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore, while net interest margin - the difference between interest paid and earned and a key gauge of bank profitability - climbed to 2.43 percent from 2.34 percent. Maybank said net impairment losses for the quarter fell by 38.2 percent to 542.8 million ringgit. The bank expects loan growth of 6-7 percent for 2017.