In 2025, CIMB Islamic’s progress reflected more than growth – it demonstrated the successful execution of a ‘one bank, Islamic-first’ strategy that has made Shariah-compliant solutions the primary option across every segment of CIMB Group’s Malaysia franchise.
Rather than operating alongside conventional banking, CIMB Islamic has embedded a comprehensive and innovative product suite across retail, wealth and wholesale banking, delivered through integrated digital platforms. The result is a model where technology, data, innovation and breadth of offering reinforce one another, enabling CIMB to deliver world-class Islamic financial solutions at scale, with financial discipline and a consistently high-quality customer experience.
This disciplined and digitally enabled approach is reflected in CIMB Islamic’s financial performance. Balance-sheet expansion has been achieved alongside improvements in funding quality, low impairment levels and robust capital buffers, resulting in rising profitability. Growth has therefore not come at the expense of resilience.
CIMB Islamic maintained its status as a dominant sukuk house in 2025, ranking at or near the top of league tables, both globally and in Asia, while also holding more than 35% market share in Malaysia’s highly competitive market.
Landmark transactions such as the MYR6 billion PNB Merdeka Ventures sukuk and SD Guthrie’s sustainability-linked issuance demonstrate execution at scale, while continued innovation – including green asset-backed securities and new sector participation – highlights CIMB’s role in expanding the boundaries of Islamic capital markets.
Importantly, these capital markets capabilities are increasingly connected to the broader client ecosystem. CIMB’s ability to integrate financing, investment and advisory into a unified platform allows it to deliver differentiated solutions rather than simply Islamic equivalents, supported by data-driven insights and embedded financing models.
Our achievements represent customer-centric innovation in sustainable finance, landmark corporate transactions as well as first-to-market consumer and business offerings
Ahmad Shahriman Mohd Shariff
For corporates, CIMB’s approach emphasises integration and relationship depth. Rather than relying on pricing to attract deposits, it embeds cash management, payments and FX capabilities into client workflows, supported by digital platforms offering real-time visibility, onboarding and transaction execution, driving current account savings account (CASA) growth in a more sustainable and sticky way.
Within its OCTO Biz platform, small and medium-sized clients (SME) clients can access pre-approved Shariah-compliant working-capital solutions such as FlexiCash-i directly within their transaction banking environment, with fully digital, end-to-end processing and repayment structures aligned to cashflow. This kind of embedded finance approach strengthens client engagement while extending access to underserved segments.
In retail and wealth, CIMB Islamic has built one of Malaysia’s most comprehensive and digitally enabled Islamic wealth ecosystems. Its next-generation OCTO mobile platform plays a central role, offering a fully embedded suite of Shariah-compliant financial services, from account opening and payments to investment accounts and takaful –supported by high levels of personalisation. The result is a customer experience in which Islamic banking is seamlessly integrated across each aspect of everyday personal financial activity.
This sits alongside an investment account platform that is both the largest retail franchise in CIMB Islamic’s home market and amongst the fastest growing, expanding significantly ahead of the industry. The platform is complemented by a broad Shariah-compliant investment offering, including more than 80 unit trust funds, delivered through OCTO integrated digital channels that allow customers to view, manage and transact across their entire portfolio in real time. CIMB Islamic offers a fully digitised wealth journey, where clients can onboard, receive personalised investment guidance and monitor portfolios through tools such as the MyWealth dashboard.
CIMB Islamic has also strengthened its position in bancatakaful through innovation and integration. Products such as Sun Enrich Extra-i combine protection, savings and wealth accumulation into a single flexible solution, embedded within the broader Islamic wealth offering. At the same time, innovations such as Malaysia’s first banca financing solution for auto customers demonstrate how protection can be seamlessly bundled into financing journeys, improving affordability and uptake while maintaining Shariah compliance. These initiatives reflect a broader strategy of embedding takaful within holistic financial planning rather than treating it as a standalone product.
Ahmad Shahriman Mohd Shariff, CEO of CIMB Islamic Bank, says: “We thank Euromoney for this recognition, which reflects the importance CIMB places on leading innovation globally in Islamic finance. Our achievements represent customer-centric innovation in sustainable finance, landmark corporate transactions as well as first-to-market consumer and business offerings which have enhanced our holistic propositions via key locations such as Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore and across Islamic banking and capital markets worldwide.
“We are particularly encouraged by the progress of our consumer and business focused offerings, including DURIAN-i in broadening access to sustainability-linked investments and FlexiCash-i in supporting SMEs with flexible digital financing, alongside our ongoing efforts to drive inclusive growth. We remain focused on strengthening our global leadership in Islamic finance through innovation, delivering sustainable value and advancing customers and society.”
Taken together, CIMB Islamic’s achievements reflect a bank that has successfully combined scale with innovation, and strategy with disciplined execution. Its ability to embed Islamic banking within a fully integrated digital ecosystem, deliver market-leading capital markets capabilities, and provide a seamless end-to-end client journey across retail, wealth and corporate segments sets it apart in an increasingly competitive field, making it a clear choice for Euromoney’s world’s best Islamic bank for 2026.
