Customer care, selling services and encouraging investments are vital aspects of the work. Different types of banks provide different services for different groups of customers. Best known perhaps and by far the largest group of banks are the commercial banks.
Merchant banks provide financial services to companies rather than to individuals.
In addition to their activities as bankers they advise on all aspects of corporate finance including takeovers and mergers, and manage pension funds and provide finance for international trade. Other activities include bullion dealing, shipping, insurance, brokering and share registration. Bank Negara does not offer a banking service to the public but acts as a banker to the government and to other banks performing the role of a central bank. Its work encompasses the supervision of banks, managing the foreign exchange reserves, administering government securities, raising short term government finance, printing, issuing and withdrawing bank notes and providing advice to the treasury and other government agencies. Overseas banks are the Malaysian branches of foreign banks and are mostly concentrated in the Klang Valley.