Part of my work as an international market expansion specialist, supporting government and companies in the process of promoting and attracting opportunities, is reading a market’s readiness not just through headlines, but through the infrastructure underneath: banking systems, regulatory friction, and the everyday experience of the people actually trying to operate there. That’s what pulled my attention to the Maybank announcement, earlier this year, and to a pattern I keep seeing repeatedly across the expat communities I’m active in.

Maybank plans to deploy MYR 10 billion (US$2.5 billion) over the next five years, with one core target tied to its CASA ratio, Current Accounts and Savings Accounts as a share of total deposits. In plain terms: the more everyday accounts a bank opens, the less it needs to rely on expensive funding sources like fixed deposits.

When global mobility is the hidden gem

One growth lever behind this is Malaysia’s still-sizable unbanked population. The other, less discussed, is global mobility. Malaysia currently ranks third globally for expat-friendliness in several credible global ranks. On paper, that’s a strong signal for banks: more people relocating should mean more accounts opened.

But the on-the-ground reality tells a different story. Across the expat groups I follow closely, one complaint comes up consistently: opening a bank account as a foreigner in Malaysia remains genuinely difficult, regardless of employment status or intent to stay. There’s a visible gap between government ambition to attract global talent and the private banking sector’s operational readiness to onboard them. That gap is exactly the kind of friction I look for when assessing underlying opportunities: the typical market inefficiencies that hide strong potential.

Also Read: Malaysia’s digital economy’s second wave looks nothing like the first

This is where Brazil enters the picture, not as a random comparison, but as a useful counter-case from my own expansion work. Brazil is a market I know from the inside, and it’s a useful stress test for Maybank’s targets: not because the two markets are comparable in maturity, but because they sit at opposite ends of the same infrastructure question, which both markets could learn from each other.

Maybank’s long-term targets (figure 1), ROE of 13 to 14 per cent, cost-to-income at 47 per cent or lower, net interest margin above 2.05 per cent (already achieved), are healthy, competitive numbers within Malaysia’s banking environment. Though, once applied to Brazil’s benchmarks to that same structure, it would collapse.

Take for instance one of Brazil’s largest banks, Itaú Unibanco, which posts an ROE of 24.3 to 25.7 per cent, a cost-to-income ratio of 35.5 to 37.3 per cent, and a NIM of 6.2 to 6.7 per cent. A margin that looks solid in Kuala Lumpur wouldn’t keep a Brazilian bank alive for one cycle.

Also Read: Malaysia fines, Singapore funds: How two governments are forcing SEA’s second digital wave

Is banking infrastructure telling us a different story about market readiness?

The difference is less about performance and more about infrastructure maturity. Brazil’s Pix, Open Finance, and heavy automation have compressed operational costs to a degree Malaysia’s banking sector is pursuing it as we speak although it hasn’t reached yet. That’s precisely the kind of variable I flag in market readiness: two very different playbooks telling different stories for the same objective: governments fulfilling their needs, companies growing abroad in a healthy structure.

Zoom out to market capitalisation (figure 2), and the layering continues: Nubank (~US$77B) and Itaú Unibanco (~US$73B) each dwarf Maybank’s ~US$34.5B, while Maybank still edges out Banco do Brasil and Bradesco. None of these figures are directly transferable between markets, and that’s the point.

For any business, or institution, eyeing expansion into global markets, the lesson is the same: rankings signal potential, infrastructure determines execution. Closing that gap isn’t a footnote, it’s the actual opportunity.

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