KUALA LUMPUR, SME Bank group president and chief executive officer (CEO) Datuk Aria Putera Ismail will leave the organisation at the end of his tenure to pursue new opportunities. Group chief corporate strategy officer Datuk Dr Mohammad Hardee Ibrahim will assume the role of acting group president and CEO starting from Sept 3, 2024, the development financial institution said. 'Mohammad Hardee brings over 20 years of extensive experience in the financial services industry, specialising in business banking and strategic management. He has served SME Bank in numerous portfolios including treasury, corporate finance, business banking and most recently, corporate strategy,' it said in a statement today. SME Bank said that under Aria Putera's six-year leadership, he has paved the way for the bank to fulfil its mandate in supporting and developing small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Malaysia. This began with redefining its vision and mission and introducing its SMILE core values, it said. In 2019, he introd uced the Two-Year Accelerated Programme, a strategic plan to revamp the bank's business with 27 initiatives focusing on sustainable developmental goals, asset quality, a comprehensive SME ecosystem, digitalisation and digitisation, and talent development. 'SME Bank has shown tremendous improvement in asset quality and financing growth during his tenure, with the gross financing amount recording a 37.6 per cent growth from RM6.47 billion in 2018 to RM8.9 billion as at end-2023, while the gross impaired rate reduced to 12.5 per cent from 22.9 per cent,' it said. In addition, the bank said, Aria Putera initiated multiple relief programmes during the global COVID-19 pandemic from October 2020 to September 2022 to support SMEs and microenterprises in various industries, which benefitted more than 5,000 companies with a total financing of RM9.12 billion. Source: BERNAMA News Agency