What are the ASEAN banks' key priorities in 2017?

In Malaysia, banks are prioritising risk management.

According to the EY Global Banking Outlook 2017, generally in the Asia-Pacific region, enhancing cybersecurity and data security, and meeting capital, liquidity and leverage ratio requirements take precedence as most critical to protecting and controlling the banks’ businesses in the coming year.

Here's more from EY:

There are some slight variations in the focus for banks in Asean. In Singapore, banks are emphasising on recruiting and retaining key talent, followed by risk management improvements, new customer-facing investments, balance sheet optimisation and gender diversity promotion on the management board.

In Malaysia, banks are prioritising risk management, and asset quality and credit risks improvement, and the ability to meet capital, liquidity and leverage ratio requirements.

In Indonesia, banks are focused on enhancing data and cybersecurity, financial crime management, ways to optimise customer channels and improvements to their risk management, asset quality and credit risks processes.

Jan Bellens, EY Global Emerging Markets Leader, Banking & Capital Markets, explains: “Banks in developed markets are focused more on talent recruitment and retention, and cybersecurity enhancements, while those in emerging markets emphasize more on improvements in risk management, asset quality and credit risks. For the former, it is likely due to increasing competition from the non-banks or FinTechs for talent. For the latter, it reflects their state of development in terms of the banking platforms and readiness of existing processes to adapt to changes in the business environment.”