BIMB Integrated Annual Report 2017

BIMB Securities’ four main strategic intents are in line with BHB’s five pillars. It ensures distribution of wealth through knowledge-sharing and educational information to all its 35 institutional clients and more than 7,000 clients and followers. These knowledge-guided investments will help spur economic growth and create sustainability over the long-term. On 16 August 2017, the Company entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with PT MNC Sekuritas, Indonesia as part of its strategic initiative to expand its footprint into the Indonesian market. The Company also promotes talent development with recruitment of fresh graduates, providing them opportunities to upskill and gain professional certification. Continuous professional development is also a requirement for the licensed personnel in the Company. During the year, BIMB Securities anchored the inaugural Shariah Investing Fair 2017, an initiative by Bursa Malaysia-i as part of its commitment to help increase financial literacy and inculcate an investing culture in a Shariah- compliant manner amongst Malaysians. SUSTAINING EXCELLENCE During the year, BHB’s continued excellence in sustainable business operations and contributions to the financial industry was recognised by three prestigious awards – Best Sustainability Strategies and Best Sustainability Report awards at the Asia Sustainability Excellence Awards 2017 on 2 August 2017; and Silver (Highest Growth in Profit after Tax over Three Years) award in the Finance Sector (Below RM10 Billion Market Cap) at the The Edge Billion Ringgit Club Corporate Awards 2017 event held on 21 August 2017. These were in addition to the myriad awards earned by our subsidiary companies during the year. These achievements truly illustrate our practice of the ‘Triple Bottom Line’ principle, which calls for social and environmental aspects to be taken into consideration in addition to the Group’s financial performance. Note: Bank Islam awards are listed on page 57, Takaful Malaysia’s awards on page 59 and BIMB Securities’ award is listed on page 62 of this report. ADVANCING TECHNOLOGY & DIGITALISATION While the awards acknowledged the consistency and focus of BHB’s sustainability strategy as aligned with globally accepted standards, they were also a recognition of the Group’s progressive nature. New initiatives are continuously being initiated such as our focus on optimising digital technology. By embracing digitalisation, we aim to facilitate the development of next generation financial products, meet the needs of the investing communities, reinvent customers’ experience and drive a digital culture among our workforce. At the inaugural Shariah Investing Fair 2017, the Group displayed its range of technology-driven investment products and services such as Global Dividend Fund 1 (the No. 1 Islamic Global Equity fund utilising Artificial Intelligence and Big Data analytic technology in stock selection to ensure optimum returns and manageable risks); Bank Islam’s Restricted Investment Account (“RIA”) products offered through Investment Account Platform (“IAP”) (a new concept in Islamic financial services offerings that leverages on the inherent digital features of an online platform); Takaful Malaysia’s “Click for Cover” online solution (a secure online platform with a host of comprehensive features that enable customers to easily apply, participate and engage in Takaful services at their convenience); and BIMB Securities’ online trading platform, BISOnline 2.0 (a mobile friendly platform that allows users to do their trading on a mobile device). Through its partnership with Arabesque, BIMB Invest has leveraged on artificial intelligence and big data technology in its investment process. This removes human biases and intuition to construct the best combination of stocks from a universe of 77,000 global listed companies to form a portfolio of up to 100 stocks daily by using more than 1,600 selection criteria that process more than 100 billion data points. The systematic and rules-based quantitative investment approaches also takes into account ESG data to invest in companies with sustainable financial future. These have and will continue to extend the reach of our products and services in line with the Group’s core focus on inclusive growth. ENSURING ROBUST GROUP RISK MANAGEMENT As a FHC, BHB is responsible for the overall risk management of our subsidiaries. We ensure their risk profiles are contained within set limits and do not compromise the safety and soundness of the Group as a whole. This is being monitored by the Group Risk Management Committee and reported to the Board Risk Committee. In order to fulfil this oversight function during the year under review, we continued to be guided by the outcome of Ernst & Young’s gap assessment report, conducted in 2016, on our readiness towards complying with regulatory requirements on financial holding company. The key focus areas included: – Corporate governance, risk management and internal control; – Capital adequacy; and – Prudential requirements, restrictions and limits 55 Overview Value Creation Accountability Financial Statements Sustainability Performance Data Shareholders Information 21 st AGM Information Management Discussion & Analysis n