Agrobank to generate value for customers, support agro-sector’s recovery
KUALA LUMPUR: Agrobank strives to focus on facilitating economic recovery and generating value through five key initiatives slated for 2022 towards strengthening the agriculture sector in Malaysia.
Covering president and chief executive officer Khadijah Iskandar said the adaptation in 2021 had positioned Agrobank in a better state of preparedness to face another crisis, and better equipped to support economic recovery efforts in agriculture sector.
She said therefore, it was important for the bank to also focus in generating value for its customers who had suffered throughout the Covid-19 pandemic.
“The pandemic has taught us to be resilient and we have continued to strive for our customers, crafting programmes and initiatives to ensure their business continuity and stability during the difficult times.
“We are confident to weather the recurrence of that situation,” she said during a virtual media briefing held recently.
The five key initiatives, said Khadijah, would focus on:
● economic recovery, to be fuelled by Agrobank through intensified distribution of government funds to specific target groups and sub-sectors;
● development of new revenue drivers;
● driving green and sustainability initiatives;
● digitalisation to enhance value proposition and improve organisational productivity, and;
● cost management to sustain increased investments into strategic capabilities.
“When we talk about the key initiative on the economy recovery, we expect to work towards higher growth focus to address the needs of National Agro-Food Policy 2.0 (DAN2.0) and supporting higher scale of mechanisation in line with the Fourth Industrial Revolution (IR4.0),” she added.
During the briefing, Khadijah also pointed out the importance for the bank to gradually shift to digital services, in line with the development of financial technology (fintech) and moving along as planned by other banks in the country.
However, she said for Agrobank, this would still depend on customer’s needs, especially from the B40 (lowincome) groups and those living in the rural areas.
“We have a plan to embark them onto the digital journey, but we also acknowledge that the Internet connectivity in the rural areas – for example, in Sabah and Sarawak – is still an issue; there is a need to reach out to and educate them about digitalisation.
“In the meantime, we are also preparing a framework to improve branch operations to ensure that the needs of local communities, especially our customers from the micro-segment, are met,” she underlined.