Maybank’s case for Asean’s best bank for large corporates is built on a regional franchise that is difficult to replicate. Its international network reaches Hong Kong, China, India, the Middle East, London and New York, but the operating centre of gravity is still firmly Asean.
Across Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam and the wider region, Maybank combines local balance sheets with transaction banking, markets, investment banking and Islamic finance, allowing it to support clients from working capital and treasury management through to acquisitions, sukuk and IPOs.
Maybank Global Banking remained the largest corporate bank in Malaysia in 2025, with a double digital increase in profit after tax, while generating more than half of the group’s revenue.
That scale is increasingly deployed across borders rather than market by market. Maybank has client coverage teams in Asean’s principal economies and uses a product-agnostic international client coverage model to coordinate relationships across jurisdictions. The bank aligns account planning, sector expertise, Shariah structuring, sustainability advice and product delivery around the client, rather than individual country or product targets. This allows Maybank to follow a corporate from domestic growth to regional expansion and capital markets access.
The clearest expression of this is the Malaysia-Singapore corridor. By the end of 2025, Maybank had facilitated more than MYR15 billion ($3.7 billion) of financing and investment interest linked to the Johor-Singapore Special Economic Zone. This included underwriting MYR2.5 billion of the MYR15 billion dual-currency green financing package for DayOne’s data centres in Johor, the largest share taken by any bank in the syndicated Islamic tranche.
Capital markets leadership
Maybank’s position as the world’s fifth-largest Islamic bank gives its investment banking franchise added regional depth.
Its execution extended across Asean’s equity and debt markets. In Malaysia, Maybank led the MYR2.4 billion Paradigm REIT IPO, the country’s largest Reit listing in 13 years, and was Eco-Shop’s IPO principal adviser, joint global coordinator, joint bookrunner and sole underwriter. In Singapore, it worked on three of the six largest listings of the year, including the Centurion Accommodation REIT IPO.
“Amid growth in intra-Asean trade and accelerating foreign direct investments, our clients are increasingly expanding within the region and we are following them to support their growth,” says John Chong, group CEO of global banking. “We are best positioned to play this key role with our platform, solutions and as the only homegrown Southeast Asian bank with a presence in 10 ASEAN markets.”
We’ve set up international and regional client coverage teams to seamlessly serve companies seeking to do cross-border expansion
John Chong
The franchise also supports clients as they expand. Maybank advised Siam Food Services, part of Thailand’s CP Group, on its MYR1.05 billion acquisition of Malaysian food distributor Renewed Hope; financed VinFast’s electric vehicle plant in Indonesia; and provided facilities to Malaysian corporates expanding in Vietnam, Cambodia and Indonesia.
Transaction banking modernisation
Maybank is applying the same regional model to transaction banking. Its enhanced Maybank2E platform is being deployed across Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia, bringing cash management, trade, payments and foreign exchange into a single interface. Corporates can view balances, trade facilities and multi-entity structures across markets, connect payment services directly to ERP and treasury systems through APIs, and automate payments, collections and reconciliation.
The bank also reworked onboarding and documentation. A single digital submission can cover accounts, channels and merchant services, while regional transaction banking documentation has been consolidated into three core documents. Across participating jurisdictions, onboarding times have fallen from more than 30 days to the same day, and documentation volumes have been reduced significantly.
Maybank is also widening its payments infrastructure. It has introduced fee-free US dollar transfers between Maybank accounts, is developing deeper-tier supply chain finance and is working with partners such as XTransfer to support China-Asean trade flows. Its presence in China gives it a natural role in the China+1 strategy, helping Chinese corporates enter Asean through a bank that can provide both local execution and regional coordination.
“We’ve set up international and regional client coverage teams to seamlessly serve companies seeking to do cross-border expansion, for example a Malaysian company wishing to expand into Vietnam, and to facilitate foreign direct investment (FDI) flows coming into the region for ASEAN especially through Singapore, the largest beneficiary of FDI in the region,” explains Chong.
Financing Asean’s next phase
Maybank’s regional strategy is moving into a new phase under ROAR30, its plan for 2026 to 2030. “This would be in enabling the mid-cap companies as they seek to grow regionally; elevating our transactions and payments business; and advancing our global leadership in Islamic finance,” adds Chong. The bank aims to become Asean’s leading corporate, investment, transaction and payments bank, with transaction banking, digital infrastructure and cross-border coverage as major growth priorities.
It has committed MYR100 billion to new-economy sectors over five years and plans to mobilise MYR300 billion of sustainable finance. That builds on the MYR176.1 billion delivered between 2021 and 2025. For large corporates, the significance is practical: Maybank can provide financing, market access, treasury infrastructure, Islamic solutions and regional execution through one Asean-led relationship.
