Southern Bank - Another one bites the dust
Bumi Commerce's takeover of Southern Bank heralds the demise of yet another profitable niche bank that built its success on the strength of its SME and retail business.I remember the days of PhileoAllied before it was forcibly swallowed by Maybank. They were the first to pioneer electronic banking and stole the lead on lumbering incumbents such as Maybank and Bumi Commerce with their highly innovative personal banking plans. Tong Kooi Ong, the former owner of PhileoAllied, has now brought his magic to Canada where he was credited with turning around timber giant Taiga.
Now that SBB is gone, I can't imagine how things are going to get better for SME's trying to secure commercial loans etc. Perhaps it would be left to the foreign banks to provide some innovative competition to the remaining local banks to ensure they don't slip into oligopolistic stupor.
Competitive Malaysia makes an interesting comparison of SBB with Park May, which was another profitable concern that was swallowed up by a GLC.
Technorati tags: malaysia, glc, business, sme,
posted by hew @ 11:49 am
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home