From verifying dealers' prices to setting a bank's capital plan

Mandate

Prepare the balance sheet for a rising-rate cycle, reduce dependence on institutional funding and give the board a capital plan that the dividend could follow.

Outcomes

• Hedged RM3.0 billion of fixed-rate personal financing in 2022; value sensitivity to a 200 basis point rise fell from 17.8 to 9.6 per cent of Tier 1.
• Raised current and savings accounts from 24 to 31 per cent of deposits; top-twenty depositor concentration fell from 34 to 21 per cent.
• Lifted CET1 from 12.4 per cent (December 2023) to 13.6 per cent (December 2025) under a stress-tested payout policy.
• Released RM118 million of pandemic overlays on evidence and retained RM96 million, of which RM61 million was absorbed in 2024.
• Return on equity rose from 7.9 per cent in 2021 to 10.6 per cent in 2025.

Decisions in context

I became CFO in April 2021, when my predecessor retired, after eight years in the bank's finance function. The board's mandate was explicit about capital and less so about funding, but within six months I had concluded that our fixed-rate personal financing, our institutional deposit base and the parent's payout aspiration were three versions of the same problem: commitments made without the balance sheet that would have to honour them. I worked through them in that order. I report to the chief executive, sit on the asset-liability committee and present at every board, audit committee and risk committee meeting without being a director of the bank. I also report twice a year to the Shariah Committee on purification and zakat. Between 2021 and 2025 assets grew from RM38.1 billion to RM46.2 billion, and profit before zakat and taxation from RM402 million to RM618 million.

Reason for the move

Current role. Not seeking an executive move; considering one independent non-executive directorship with the board's consent.

Mandate

Lead the bank's adoption of MFRS 9, modernise capital reporting and prepare a successor team for the finance function.

Outcomes

• Implemented MFRS 9 from January 2018, with a RM142 million day-one adjustment to retained earnings explained to the board a year in advance.
• Arranged the bank's first RM500 million Tier 2 subordinated sukuk in 2019.
• Accounted for the 2020 repayment moratoria, including a one-off modification loss of RM87 million.
• Built the cohort-based overlay framework that held RM214 million at the end of 2022.

Decisions in context

As deputy CFO I ran financial reporting and capital while my predecessor concentrated on the board and the parent company. The first large task was MFRS 9. Moving from incurred to expected credit loss meant building staging rules, macroeconomic scenarios and a governance process for overlays with the credit risk team, and explaining a RM142 million day-one adjustment to the board well before it appeared in our accounts. In 2019 I arranged our first Tier 2 subordinated sukuk, RM500 million with a five-year call, after a long review of its structure with the Shariah Committee. Then the pandemic arrived. The 2020 repayment moratoria produced a modification loss of RM87 million and left our arrears data unreliable for two years, which is why I built the overlay framework by cohort. The bank promoted me to CFO when my predecessor retired in March 2021.

Reason for the move

Appointed CFO on my predecessor's retirement.

Mandate

Build the measurement of liquidity and profit-rate risk that a growing domestic Islamic bank lacked, ahead of new liquidity standards.

Outcomes

• Prepared the bank for the liquidity coverage ratio introduced by Bank Negara Malaysia in 2015; the ratio never fell below 130 per cent in the phase-in period.
• Built the first economic-value measure of profit-rate risk, reported quarterly to the risk committee from 2014.
• Introduced behavioural assumptions for current and savings accounts based on seven years of balance data.
• Set the first internal CET1 floor, adopted by the board in 2016.

Decisions in context

Sejahra hired me in February 2013 to give a fast-growing domestic Islamic bank the balance sheet measurement it had outgrown. Liquidity was monitored through a maturity ladder that took no account of how depositors actually behaved, and profit-rate risk was measured only through next year's income. With a team of eighteen I built behavioural assumptions for current and savings accounts, an economic-value measure of rate risk and the stress tests behind our first internal CET1 floor, which the board adopted in 2016. The largest single task was preparing for the liquidity coverage ratio, which Bank Negara Malaysia introduced in 2015 with a phased minimum. I sat on the asset-liability committee without dealing authority, which taught me to persuade treasury rather than instruct it. I was promoted to deputy CFO in September 2016.

Reason for the move

Promoted to deputy CFO.

Mandate

Build a standalone finance function for an Islamic subsidiary recently separated from its conventional parent.

Outcomes

• Produced the subsidiary's first standalone audited financial statements under its own chart of accounts.
• Separated Islamic and conventional funding pools and ended shared liquidity arrangements that the Shariah committee had questioned.
• Established a zakat computation method endorsed by the Shariah committee.
• Grew assets from RM3.9 billion to RM6.8 billion with no qualified audit opinion.

Decisions in context

Harbourfield posted me to Kuala Lumpur in June 2009 to run finance for its Malaysian Islamic subsidiary, which had been carved out of the conventional bank and needed accounts, controls and a funding structure of its own. I arrived knowing banking finance and very little Islamic finance, and I learnt it from the subsidiary's Shariah committee and from the evening diploma I completed in 2011. We produced the first standalone audited accounts, separated the Islamic funding pool from the conventional one and agreed a zakat method with the committee. Assets grew from RM3.9 billion to RM6.8 billion. By 2012 I wanted to manage a whole balance sheet in a bank whose decisions were taken in Malaysia, and Sejahra offered me that in early 2013.

Reason for the move

Wanted to manage the balance sheet of a larger domestic Islamic bank rather than a subsidiary run from Singapore.

Mandate

Provide independent valuation control for treasury desks and, later, report the banking book's exposure to interest rates.

Outcomes

• Introduced independent price verification for Singapore-dollar swaps and bonds using external sources.
• Built the group's first monthly report of banking-book interest-rate sensitivity in 2006.
• Supported the valuation committee through the 2008 dislocation, documenting reserves for instruments that had stopped trading.

Decisions in context

I joined Harbourfield's group treasury finance team in October 2004 to check the prices that dealers used to value their positions and to explain each day's trading result. It was precise, unglamorous work, and it taught me how quickly a confident valuation can drift from what an instrument would actually fetch. From 2006 I also reported the interest-rate exposure in the banking book, which is where I first saw how much risk a commercial bank holds outside its trading desks. In 2008 several instruments we held stopped trading altogether. I prepared the valuation committee's papers on reserves for them and learnt to write down what we did not know as carefully as what we did. In 2009 the group asked me to move to its Islamic subsidiary in Kuala Lumpur.

Reason for the move

Asked to move to Kuala Lumpur to lead finance at the group's Malaysian Islamic subsidiary.

Mandate

Run audit fieldwork for financial-services clients.

Outcomes

• Led fieldwork on about twelve statutory audits a year from 2002.
• Introduced file-by-file testing of loan provisions at two finance-company clients in place of portfolio sampling.
• Qualified as a chartered accountant in 2003.

Decisions in context

I joined Seah Arumugam & Partners in July 2000, straight from university, and spent four years on audits of financial-services clients: finance companies, insurance brokers and the Singapore branch of a mid-sized foreign bank. I qualified as a chartered accountant in 2003 and led fieldwork as an audit senior from 2002. The work that shaped me most was testing provisions at two finance companies, where I replaced portfolio sampling with file-by-file review and found that several provisions had been agreed with management rather than derived from the borrower's position. I began to understand that a provision is a judgement with consequences. I left in 2004 because I wanted to see a bank's balance sheet change from the inside rather than inspect it once a year.

Reason for the move

Wanted to work inside a bank and see its balance sheet change rather than audit it once a year.