Stockmarket.com.my

One of the major banking groups in Malaysia, HLB (Hong Leong Bank Bhd) has announced that they are targeting to increase its online customer base to 480,000 with their new banking service by the end of the 2012 financial year with their launch of the Hong Leong Connect system.

According to Ken Yong, the head of digital banking, they currently have 350,000 online customers of whom 40% of these customers use the Hong Leong Online Personal portal monthly while 20% are occasional users. He said that with the expected number of smartphone users in Malaysia to reach 9 million by the end of the year, the digital banking sector is set to increase as well.

HLB has since invested some RM5million into its IT (Information Technology) platform and with their latest offering, they are hoping to position the bank as one of the Top 3 internet banking providers in the country. Yvonne Chia who is the managing director of HLB group said that the newly launched Hong Leong Connect will be the platform convergence of its digital banking services which will involve adding the mobile banking platform to its current online banking system. HLB is the first bank to launch a transactional mobile banking applications across the Apple iPhone iOS, the Google Android OS and the Blackberry OS respectively.