KUALA LUMPUR: Maybank Investment Bank said Malaysian banks are guiding for a pick-up in loan growth this year, emanating from both the retail and corporate sectors.
Corporate sector is set to contribute to higher loan growth compared with the retail sector as the former’s drawdowns have been more active this year, the research house added.
“Industry loan growth was a decent 4.2 per cent year-on-year (YoY) in January 2018 and for now, we maintain our 2018 loan growth forecast of 4.5 per cent versus 4.1 per cent YoY in 2017,” it said in a note.
Household loan growth on the other hand ticked up to 5.2 per cent YoY from 5.1 per cent YoY while non-household loan growth was 2.8 per cent YoY versus 2.9 per cent YoY in 2017, it added.