CIMB Group Holdings Berhad has announced plans to expand its involvement in tokenised financial services, including tokenised assets, settlement processes, and advanced payment systems. This move is part of a broader initiative to support Malaysia’s goal of increasing the use of tokenisation within the financial sector. The rollout will take place in stages through Securities Commission Malaysia’s industry pilot programme on securities tokenisation. CIMB also intends to work with Bank Negara Malaysia for entry into the Digital Asset Innovation Hub.
Novan Amirudin, Group Chief Executive Officer of CIMB Group, stated: “CIMB is pleased to play a leading role in advancing Malaysia’s evolution towards a modern, resilient financial market infrastructure. In line with our purpose of advancing customers and society and our Forward30 strategic plan, we are strengthening our digital and tokenisation capabilities to address real opportunities and democratise market access across the banking and financial ecosystem.”
A significant upcoming step for CIMB is its participation in Khazanah Nasional Berhad’s and SC’s pilot project for issuing tokenised sukuk. The bank will contribute across various areas such as structuring, execution, custody arrangements, and servicing throughout the lifecycle of these instruments. The development phases are expected to continue into 2026 as regulatory and operational frameworks evolve.
Over the past three years, CIMB has issued around RM40 billion in conventional bonds and Islamic Sukuk in Malaysia. As digital asset technologies develop further, CIMB plans to apply insights from pilot projects by gradually shifting some future funding activities toward tokenised bond and sukuk formats.
The group aims for greater efficiency and improved connectivity between payments and capital markets by developing digital asset-based instruments that form part of an updated financial infrastructure. Additionally, CIMB is working on supporting regulated bank deposits represented as tokens for settling transactions involving tokenised securities. This approach seeks to reduce manual processing steps while enhancing transparency, scalability, operational efficiency, and fractional ownership options.
“Well-designed asset tokenisation offers several potential advantages to fundamentally transform the industry especially in terms of accessibility, efficiency and transparency particularly across payments and wholesale banking. We will begin with practical, use-case-driven applications, implemented within the regulatory frameworks and underpinned by strong governance and controls. Through close collaboration with partners such as Khazanah Nasional Berhad, we aim to scale innovation responsibly and deliver tangible value to the market,” said Novan Amirudin.
CIMB is collaborating closely with Bank Negara Malaysia and Securities Commission Malaysia to ensure that all initiatives meet current prudential standards. Risk management protocols are being integrated from early stages using a compliance-by-design method. Any new products introduced will undergo legal review as well as internal governance checks before launch.
