CIMB Group Holdings reported operating income of MYR 22.5 billion (approximately $4.9 billion) for the financial year ended 31 December 2025, up 0.7% year-on-year, with net profit of MYR 7.9 billion (approximately $1.7 billion), a 1.7% increase. Return on equity was 11.3% — 10 basis points ahead of the prior year and within its full-year guidance range of 11.0–11.5%.

“It has been an extremely resilient year," group chief executive Novan Amirudin said as net interest income remained broadly stable despite persistent rate cuts across every market in which it operates, non-interest income (NOII) grew and asset quality reached a historic best, while capital was actively reallocated toward higher-returning markets.

Amirudin said the headline figures understate the performance. On a constant-currency basis, excluding the impact of a strengthening ringgit against the currencies of the Group's ASEAN operating markets — where roughly 39% of income is earned, principally in Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore — net profit grew 5.3%. "The business engines in each of the countries continue to run," he said. "That is what is most important."

Amirudin acknowledged that foreign exchange (FX) will continue to be a headwind in 2026, given CIMB's own house forecast for the ringgit to strengthen further toward the 3.80 level by year-end. "FX headwinds will not change how we operate our business," he said. "We are not FX speculators. We are focused on serving our customers in each of our respective countries."

The results were presented as the first-year progress report on Forward30, CIMB's six-year strategic plan structured around four pillars — capital, cash, cross-sell and capabilities — each of which produced measurable outcomes in FY25.

Capital: Reallocation drives Malaysia to the fore

The first of the four pillars produced the most visible shift in the Group's financial profile. CIMB increased its risk-weighted asset allocation to Malaysia from 54% to 56%, while reducing allocations to Indonesia from 19% to 17% and Thailand from 12% to 10%. The consequence was direct: Malaysia's share of group pre-tax profit rose from 57% to 61%, and its return on equity improved from 11.0% to 12.1% — already within the Group's 12–13% midterm ROE target for 2027.

"Indonesia and Thailand saw a lot of challenges this year — macroeconomic headwinds, politics, policy — and we made a conscious decision," Amirudin said. "Malaysia is a lot more stable, enjoying a lot more tailwind relative to other Asian markets." Singapore continued to generate the Group's highest country-level ROE at 18.0%, broadly unchanged from the prior year, underpinned by its role as CIMB's ASEAN treasury hub.

Amirudin was direct that the reallocation does not represent a withdrawal. "There is no pullback. We are still committed to all the countries that we operate. It is just that we are being a lot more cautious and nimbler with regards to where we grow our capital." In Indonesia, the focus will shift toward large corporates and the wealth segment. Thailand continues a structural operating model overhaul involving strategic workforce transformation, branch optimisation and portfolio rebalancing, with a dedicated investor presentation expected in the near term.

Capital discipline also drove the Group's shareholder return programme. CIMB's board proposed a second interim dividend of MYR 0.20 (approximately $0.04) per share for FY25, bringing the full-year dividend to MYR 0.47 (approximately $0.10) — the highest in the Group's history — and total dividend payout to MYR 5.1 billion (approximately $1.1 billion). The CET1 ratio stood at 14.3% after the dividend, above the Group's minimum guidance of 14.0%.

In November 2025, CIMB became the first Malaysian company to announce a multi-year capital return programme, committing to return up to MYR 2 billion (approximately $430 million) to shareholders by 2027 through a combination of special dividends and share buybacks. The first tranche was paid as a special cash dividend of MYR 0.07 (approximately $0.02) per share in December 2025. Amirudin said the choice between the two instruments will be determined by value. "If we are undervalued in the market, the more optimal way to return capital is through a share buyback. If circumstances show that a special dividend is more efficient, we will do that," he said.

Cash: Deposit franchise cushions NIM compression

The second pillar — building a stronger deposit franchise to optimise cost of funds — was tested directly in FY25 by persistent rate cuts across every market in which CIMB operates. Net interest income, which Amirudin noted represents close to 70% of total revenue, remained broadly stable at MYR 15.3 billion (approximately $3.3 billion), down marginally from MYR 15.4 billion (approximately $3.3 billion) in FY24. That stability was not accidental.

Total deposits grew 5.4% on a constant-currency basis to MYR 524.4 billion (approximately $113 billion). The growth in the deposit base drove a 21-basis point reduction in cost of funds year-on-year and a further 10 basis points quarter-on-quarter — which in turn cushioned net interest margin compression to 8 basis points for the full year, narrowing the decline to 2.13% from 2.21% in FY24. "The cash strategy is showing results," Amirudin said. "We've managed to mitigate NIM compression to 8 basis points."

The quarterly NIM trajectory reinforced the narrative. NIM troughed at 2.08% in the third quarter before recovering to 2.10% in the fourth. "We are starting to see NIM compression bottoming out in all the various markets that we operate," Amirudin said. The loan-to-deposit ratio declined 1.9 percentage points year-on-year to 86.4%, reflecting deposit growth outpacing loan expansion and providing additional balance sheet flexibility heading into 2026.

Cross-sell: Client franchise income outpaces headline growth

The third pillar — increasing returns by earning more than just interest income — produced the most strategically significant result of the year. NOII rose 3.1% year-on-year to MYR 7.1 billion (approximately $1.5 billion), bringing the NOII-to-total-income ratio to 31.7%. But within that growth, client franchise income — the recurring, customer-driven component — grew 4.8%, faster than total NOII and faster than the 0.7% rise in overall operating income. At MYR 4.8 billion (approximately $1.0 billion), client franchise now represents roughly two-thirds of total NOII.

"The main driver of NOII growth comes from our client franchise business," Amirudin said. "The growth in client franchise is faster than the growth in NOII itself, which validates our cross-sell strategy." Amirudin has described cross-sell as the strategy of "earning more than just loans to increase our returns" — and in FY25 the composition of NOII growth began to reflect it.

The breakdown is specific. Treasury client sales — FX transactions, derivatives and risk management solutions executed on behalf of clients — grew 7.2% year-on-year, the fastest-growing component of the franchise. Fees and commission income rose 3.2%. Wealth assets under management grew 9.2% to MYR 353 billion (approximately $76 billion), supported by a 3.0% increase in the number of wealth customers. CIMB ranked first in Malaysia's ringgit bond and sukuk market with 32.5% and 15.3% market share respectively, per Dealogic's league table data, and first in investment banking across Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand combined by deal value.

Group chief financial and strategy officer Khairul Rifaie added that NOII growth in 2026 is expected to run at slightly above mid-single digits — and that the NOII proportion of total income is expected to continue growing.

The cross-sell thesis also extends to how CIMB thinks about asset growth. "I am not fixated on loan growth," Amirudin said. "I am looking at total asset growth, and that asset comes from loans and bonds — and that depends on what is best for our customer." In a year of falling interest rates and tightening credit spreads, bond market financing was cheaper for many corporate clients than conventional loans. CIMB, as underwriter, put those bonds on its own balance sheet — generating fee income, advisory revenue and asset growth simultaneously. "Rather than extending loans to a customer, we use our balance sheet to underwrite part of the bonds," he said. "That is what led to the growth in our assets."

In December 2025, CIMB committed to issuing its next funding instrument in tokenised format and was admitted into Bank Negara Malaysia's Digital Asset Innovation Hub. "We are not about being followers. We always want to be leaders. Although it is still very early in the blockchain environment, we want to be first," Amirudin said.

Capabilities: Cost discipline holds; asset quality reaches historic best

The fourth pillar — becoming simpler, better and faster — manifested in two ways: cost control and asset quality improvement. Operating expenses grew 2.0% year-on-year to MYR 10.6 billion (approximately $2.3 billion), with personnel costs essentially flat, while technology investment continued at MYR 1.7 billion (approximately $370 million), representing a technology-cost-to-income ratio of 7.8%, within the guided range of 8–9%. The cost-to-income ratio came in at 47.3%, marginally above the Group's sub-47% guidance. Amirudin characterised it as close to target. "We can only achieve disciplined cost management by becoming simpler, better and faster," he said.

The Group deployed MYR 100 million (approximately $22 million) in AI training and upskilling during the year and launched its SBF (Simpler, Better, Faster) Lab initiative, through which more than 30 business process improvement projects were completed. All front-end customer applications — including the OCTO consumer app, OCTO Biz for business customers and the Touch 'n Go Digital platform — are now described by management as next-generation ready.

Asset quality strengthened materially. The gross impaired loan (GIL) ratio improved to 1.72%, down from 2.12% a year earlier. "This is the best ever GIL that CIMB Group has achieved," Amirudin said. Gross impaired loans fell from MYR 9.57 billion (approximately $2.1 billion) to MYR 7.79 billion (approximately $1.7 billion), during which the Group wrote off MYR 3.2 billion (approximately $690 million) in loans, broadly unchanged from MYR 3.19 billion (approximately $690 million) in FY24. Allowance coverage remained above 100% at 103.2%, and the loan loss charge of 30 basis points came in within the full-year guidance range of 25–35 basis points.

The path to 12–13% ROE by 2027

For 2026, CIMB reiterated guidance for ROE in the 11.0–11.5% range, asset growth of 5–7% at constant currency, a cost-to-income ratio below 47%, a loan loss charge of 25–35 basis points and a CET1 ratio at or above 14.0%. The Group also tripled its sustainable finance target to MYR 300 billion (approximately $65 billion) by 2030 and committed MYR 200 million (approximately $43 million) in community investment over the same period, 30% above its previous commitment.

"We are on track to achieve our 12–13% ROE which we have committed to the market by 2027, which is the midterm checkpoint of Forward30," Amirudin said. "We basically ignored the noise and focused on doing what we do best, which is executing Forward30."