INDUSTRIAL VISIT 3

CIMB REPORT

INTRODUCTION

Last 26^th October 2018, on Friday we went to headquarter of CIMB Bank Malaysia for our second industrial visit. This visit was organised by the School of Computing for the data and software engineering students. There were 56 data engineering students, 10 software engineering students and escorted by 2 lecturers. This head office based in KL Central, Kuala Lumpur. The aim for this visit is to give exposure about job specification needed for a career in IT, especially in financial field in CIMB Bank.

CIMB Group Holdings Berhad is a Malaysian universal bank headquartered in Kuala Lumpur and operating in high growth economies in ASEAN. CIMB is an abbreviation for Commerce International Merchant Bankers. CIMB Group is an indigenous ASEAN investment bank. CIMB has a wide retail branch network with 1,080 branches across the region. The group operates under several entities, which include CIMB Investment Bank, CIMB Bank, CIMB Islamic, CIMB Niaga, CIMB Securities International and CIMB Thai.

Extracted from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIMB

DETAILS OF JOURNEY

SERVICE

CIMB group has served to the ASEAN countries and some Asia countries as a universal bank also known as one of the largest investment banks in Asia and one of the largest Islamic bank in the world by providing consumers, investment, Islamic and private banking product and services worldwide. An IT graduate here plays an important role as they basically are in charge with everything that relates to technology perspective of banking operation. It involves everything including the software end to the hardwares. This relates to using banking software such as Finacle, FLEXCUBE,BanCS, SAP and so on. In this era, IT specialist with more skills are useful to the banks as they are going to help maintaining a software and would service the network that run the Banking Business operations. Programmers are responsible to ensure that the security of bank is under control and cannot be easily cracked by unauthorised individuals. Other than that, the people from IT would have an access to secure their system and report to the financial industry if there are any governance or compliance issues related. It can also be an advantage to a certain individuals if they have more than one skills not just in their field of study but in others such as finance and business. This is a good opportunity for IT graduates to earn more than just focusing in their specific major. There are not just accountants and finance people in the bank. IT people plays an important role too as they have websites to maintain and also to always keep track of updates that can be done in their own application to gain more customers. A data analysis has a great chance to contribute to the bank since banking sector has a massive amount of data kept.

As a bank, CIMB has offered to so many kind of services worldwide that includes Consumer Banking, Wholesale Banking, and  Islamic Banking. There also provide some investments to many company across the world including China and Singapore. Different country has its different group brands but they all are placed under its universal banking franchise called CIMB Group. There are called CIMB Niaga in Indonesia, CIMB Thailand, CIMB Islamic, CIMB Vietnam and many more groups.  Other that providing their banking services, CIMB offers training and internships to graduates who are qualified by CIMB after going through some interviews. The provide sufficient training including allowance and help people to experience the financial world as well as new thinking and perspective to their company. All of those could be obtained from their website, CIMB. CIMB have collaborated with a number of institution in Malaysia and also oversea. They conducted numerous programs to students so they could see their future young talents and the lucky ones would sometimes be part of the CIMB team as well.

Organization

Integrity, Experience and Insight is the trademark of their leadership. At ASEAN’s leading universal bank, the leaders draw on their rich history to fulfil the needs of the present and set the path for the future. CIMB’s board of directors are leaders in the ASEAN financial world; dedicated to their vision of universal banking for the region.

 from CIMB websites

ACHIEVEMENT

In 2017, CIMB was recognised for its excellence in few categories which are Best JomPAY Bank,  Best Customer Experience for JomPAY,  JomPAY Innovative Award,  Best IBG Bank and FPX Innovative Award at the Malaysian e-Payments Excellence Awards.

Tengku Dato’ Sri Zafrul Aziz, Group Chief Executive, CIMB Group (left) receiving the “Best JomPAY Bank” award from Datuk Muhammad bin Ibrahim, Governor, Bank Negara Malaysia (centre), accompanied by Peter Schiesser, Managing Director, MyClear (right).

(source from https://www.cimb.com/en/news/news/2017/cimb-is-top-award-winner-and-best-jompay-bank-for-second-consecutive-year.html )

In 2018, CIMB has received numerous awards such as following :

( derived from https://www.cimb.com/en/who-we-are/overview/awards/2018.html 

Through talk from Mr. Ahmad Affzan, we have been exposed how data in a bank is managed. In addition, we have also acquired knowledge on how they build a security system to protect and safeguard customer personal information. Furthermore, through this visit we are aware that it is important to preserve data and maintain the security of the website.

Reflection

On of the way to improve your potential in the industry is to join program provided to be more clear about the field. In addition, we should prepare ourselves by doing further research on the IT field or to ask relevant people on the field. Researching is not enough, so we have to experience it by studying with experts or following the programs offered. As always, our technical and soft skills need to be steady to distinguish us from others. The skills have no meanings if we do not have innovative and creative thinking in order to develop new technology or systems. Creativity will become one of the top three skills workers will need. With the avalanche of new products, new technologies and new ways of working, workers are going to have to become more creative in order to benefit from these changes .Not only that, the most essential part that needed the most by employers is a good critical thinking and complex problem solving to complete the task smoothly. Last but not least, stay in the current path of technology is critical so that we are not left behind in this 4^th Industrial Revolution.

Some parts in us that wonders how is it like to be working in a banking sector especially in IT field. After listening to the talk given, we feel like we can relate with how hardworking the bankers are trying to maintain an updated system for consumers. Indeed it is not an easy job to keep the system always functioning and at the same time keeping all data and information secured under control. With the advanced in technology, there will always be challenges face by the bank from cyber crime such as hackers. Although there are still no specific job as a data engineer in banking yet, we believe there are a place for it soon. From what we have heard, this field is still new in the working industry and not all company have figured out what exactly a data engineering does but sooner or later there will exist this position. We are very looking forward to improve myself with better skills to serve the companies and enjoy our job.