Teh Hong Piow: An exhilarating adventure
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BANKING

Teh Hong Piow: An exhilarating adventure

As part of Euromoney's 50th anniversary coverage, we profile some of the biggest names that we interviewed for our May Asia focus.

Teh Hong Piow has been in Malaysian banking longer than there has been a Malaysia. 

“I will never forget August 6, 1966, when Public Bank officially commenced business in Kuala Lumpur,” he says. 

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It started out in a three-storey building; today its 36-storey office headquarters oversees 265 branches nationwide. It has never not been profitable; having crossed a billion ringgit profit for the first time in 2000, it increased that figure sevenfold by 2017.

“Starting a bank, by any measure, is daunting,” he says. 

But even back then he had built a strong career at OCBC in Singapore and Malayan Banking, a forerunner of today’s Maybank. 

“I was not totally venturing into the unknown.

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