Malaysia’s CIMB to focus on mobile banking, won’t build physical branches in PHL

Kuala Lumpur-based CIMB Bank, which entered the Philippines last month, said that its business strategy in the country will be to shun building brick-and-mortar branches and focus purely on mobile internet banking.

"Our strategy is never to build branches. Our strategy is all digital," CIMB Bank Philippines chief marketing officer and head of business development head Patrick Cuartero said in a chance interview on the sidelines of a press briefing in Taguig City on Thursday.

Cuartero said the lender wants to focus on digital banking because it wants to address the issues why many Filipinos are still unbanked.

In its 2017 Financial Inclusion Survey, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas found that 52.8 million or 77.4 percent of Filipino adults remain unbanked.

Among the reasons cited for not having a bank account include the high cost of opening one; not having enough money; and the many documentary requirements.

"Well, the only way to address that is through digital banking," Cuartero said.

According to CIMB Bank Philippines' website, one can open a bank account in just 10 minutes using their smartphone by downloading the bank's mobile app.

No initial deposit or maintaining balance is required.

"Having this business model is sustainable since we are saving costs on building physical branches," Cuartero said.

CIMB Bank's entry into the Philippines also completes it presence in all 10 ASEAN countries. — BM, GMA News