新马银行积极拓展海外市场

Banks in Singapore and Malaysia Make Efforts to Develop Overseas Markets

为配合世贸组织订下的开放金融领域时间表，马来西亚中央银行在2000年启动大规模的金融业合并行动，58家金融机构合并成10家金融集团，以达到提高服务素质及经济规模化效益，与金融业开放后涌入的外资银行竞争。令人意外的是，银行合并并没有达到预期的效果，普罗大众反而被迫缴付各种名堂的服务费，以提高银行的收益。此外，银行合并也导致近1／3员工被裁，为就业增加压力。

In a bid to meet the schedule committed with the WTO for opening the banking sector, the central bank of Malaysia in 2000 launched the large scale merger in the financial sector, with 58 financial institutions merged into 10 ones, so that the service quality and economic scale were enhanced to meet the challenges which would come from the overseas rivals with the opening. To the surprise of many, the merger did not achieve the expected result and the general public had to pay services charges in many shapes and sizes to for more benefits of banks. And the merger also resulted in one third of workforce laid off and rising unemployment.