Update CIMB sees 25% growth in active online customer base in 2010

Tags: CIMB Bank Bhd | CIMB Clicks | Hotlink | iPhone | Matthew Willsher | Maxis Communications Bhd | Peter England

Written by Ellina Badri
Tuesday, 20 October 2009 11:05

KUALA LUMPUR: CIMB Bank Bhd is targeting a 25% growth rate in active users of its online banking portal, CIMB Clicks, in 2010 from the current base of 900,000, the bank’s head of retail banking Peter England said.

He said its customer base of active users made up about half of its customers who had signed up to use the portal, while the current number of CIMB customers in Malaysia stood at 5.3 million.

England was speaking to reporters yesterday after the launch of the bank and Maxis Communications Bhd’s CIMB Clicks application for the iPhone, which enables users to check their CIMB bank account balances without having to log in to the bank’s portal.

He also said since the application’s soft launch on Sept 25, over 5,000 users worldwide had already downloaded the application for their mobile phones.

He added while the bank did not have a targeted number of new customers for its online portal, its customer base was expected to grow given that CIMB was currently the only bank here to provide such an application.

“We are proud to be the first bank in Malaysia to be able to offer our customers the mobility and convenience of checking their bank account balances via an iPhone application. It provides our customers the handiness of managing accounts while actively on the move,” he said.

The bank’s separate customer base of mobile phone banking users numbered 25,000, he added.

Maxis Communications Bhd CFO Rossana Rashidi (left) and England at the launch of CIMB Clicks Application for iPhone yesterday. Photo by Suhaimi Yusuf

Meanwhile, England also said CIMB’s iPhone application was currently the most popular financial service download by Malaysians from the Apple store.

Maxis chief marketing officer Matthew Willsher added the Apple store currently had 85,000 applications for download, and the success of CIMB’s application so far showed the competitiveness of the product.

Other features of the application include a CIMB bank branch and ATM locater, home loan calculator and currency converter. Downloading the application is free.

In conjunction with the launch, CIMB and Maxis will offer iPhones to customers as part of its promotion. From Oct 23 to Nov 19, one phone will be given out to customers with the highest transaction of bill payment via CIMB Clicks for the first two weeks, and to customers with the highest transaction of Hotlink reload via the portal for the last two weeks.


This article appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, October 20, 2009.