page_title: Economy of Malaysia
section_title: Finance and banking
hierarchical_section_title: Economy of Malaysia / Services sector / Finance and banking
caption_attribution_description: English: Maybank Tower in downtown Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Bahasa Melayu: Menara Maybank 中文（简体）‎: 马来亚银行大厦 (吉隆坡)
context_page_description: The economy of Malaysia is the third largest in Southeast Asia, after Indonesia, Thailand, and is the 35th largest economy in the world. Labour productivity in Malaysia is significantly higher than in neighbouring Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines or Vietnam due to a high density of knowledge-based industries and adoption of cutting-edge technology for manufacturing and digital economy. According to the Global Competitiveness Report 2019, the Malaysian economy is the 27th most competitive country in the world.
  Malaysian citizens enjoy affluent lifestyle compared to almost all other ASEAN countries, in which only Singapore and Brunei managed to rival over. Their standard of living are closer to the Western Europe countries such as Portugal and Spain, and closely resembled the developed part of Eastern Europe such as Poland, Latvia, and Czech Republic. This is due to a fast growing export oriented economy, a relatively low national income tax, highly affordable local food, and transport fuel, as well as a fully subsidized single payer public-healthcare. Moreover, social welfare benefit with direct cash benefit transfer called Cost of Living Assistance is also in place since 2011.
context_section_description: Kuala Lumpur has a large financial sector, and is ranked the 22nd in the world in the Global Financial Centres Index.
  There are currently 27 commercial banks (8 domestic and 19 foreign), 16 Islamic banks (10 domestic and 6 foreign), 15 investment banks (all domestic) and 2 other financial institutions (both domestic) operating in Malaysia.
  Commercial banks are the largest and most significant providers of funds in the banking system. The biggest banks in Malaysia's finance sector are Maybank, CIMB, Public Bank Berhad, RHB Bank and AmBank.
  Malaysia is currently also the world's largest centre of Islamic Finance. Malaysia has 16 fully-fledged Islamic banks including five foreign ones, with total Islamic bank assets of US$168.4 billion, which accounts for 25% of the Malaysia's total banking assets. This in turn accounts for over 10% of the world's total Islamic banking assets. In comparison, Malaysia's main rival UAE, has US$95 billion of assets.
  Malaysia is the global leader in terms of the sukuk (Islamic bond) market, issuing RM62 billion (US$17.74 billion) worth of sukuk in 2014 - over 66.7% of the global total of US$26.6 billion Malaysia also accounts for around two-thirds of the global outstanding sukuk market, controlling $178 billion of $290 billion, the global total.
  The Malaysian government is planning to transform the country's capital Kuala Lumpur into a major financial centre in a bid to raise its profile and spark greater international trade and investment through the construction of the Tun Razak Exchange (TRX). The government believes the project will allow Malaysia to compete with regional financial superpowers such as Singapore and Hong Kong, by leveraging on the country's established strength in the rapidly growing Islamic financial marketplace.
caption: Headquarters of Maybank, Malaysia's largest bank
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