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CIMB Bank Berhad, Singapore Branch

One star: serious findings on the record and a recent adverse finding.

Booking centreSingapore
RegulatorMAS
Legal formBranch of CIMB Bank Berhad
GroupCIMB Group
Websitecimb.com.sg
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PPLI.com
Private Bank Rating
1 out of 5 stars
Editorial assessment on UHNW criteria
Reviewed 6 November 2026 · Q4 2026 edition
Updated every quarter
Rating signed byNoam CohenEditor, Bank Intelligence
About the rating
1 out of 5, Q4 2026 edition
Publishedshown as published, not compared
3matters on the record, 2019 to 2024
SGD 1 millionminimum relationship
The editor's opinion

Why CIMB has one star

CIMB earns one star. What holds the rating down: serious adverse findings against this licence holder in the last ten years. The last adverse finding is recent. In its favour: deposits are covered by a statutory protection scheme. Still to be confirmed: whether past findings were remediated and how the law protects custody assets in this centre. Until they are on file, the rating cannot count them.

Noam Cohen, Editor, Bank IntelligenceReviewed 6 November 2026, Q4 2026 edition. The rating weighs the public record together with what clients and their advisers tell us in confidence; retail products, branches and apps play no part.

Where CIMB stands out

  • Deposits are covered by a statutory protection scheme.

What to weigh

  • Serious adverse findings against this licence holder in the last ten years.
  • The last adverse finding is recent.
  • Only part of the tariff is published.
  • No public account of how the issues behind past findings were remediated.
  • How the law here would protect custody assets if the bank failed is not yet documented in this file.
  • The terms that would govern custody of your assets are not public.
Rating on public information
PPLI.com rating, after client experience

A large number of complaints about the bank's service received by PPLI.com from clients. On that basis the editor lowered the rating on 2 November 2026; it will be reviewed in the next quarterly edition.

The rating expresses the opinion of PPLI.com on the date shown. It is not a statement of fact about the bank, not a credit rating, not a forecast of failure and not investment advice.

The record

Regulatory and legal record

What regulators, prosecutors and courts have decided, recorded against the legal entity they named, with the status, the amounts as published and a link to the original document. Claims and investigations still under way are marked as open.

202429 July 2024

Administrative monetary penalty for prolonged disruption of digital banking, ATM and card services

Bank Negara Malaysia imposed an administrative monetary penalty of RM760,000 on CIMB Bank Berhad and CIMB Islamic Bank Berhad on 29 July 2024 after customers faced prolonged disruption of online banking, ATMs and cards on 8 and 9 April 2024. The bank found lapses in the execution of CIMB's response and recovery process.

lapses in the execution of its response and recovery process
Bank Negara MalaysiaFinal decisionPenalty MYR 0.8 millionPrimary source
202430 January 2024

Administrative monetary penalty for failing to comply with statistical reporting requirements

Bank Negara Malaysia imposed an administrative monetary penalty of MYR 600,000 on CIMB Bank Berhad, the legal entity of which the Singapore branch is part, on 30 January 2024 for failing to comply with statistical reporting requirements under section 143 of the Financial Services Act 2013. The penalty was published on 6 May 2024 in a notice covering 14 institutions, in which the sister company CIMB Islamic Bank Berhad was penalised MYR 120,000.

Bank Negara MalaysiaFinal decisionPenalty MYR 600,000Primary source
201917 May 2019

Administrative monetary penalty and compound for unauthorised disclosure of customer information

Bank Negara Malaysia imposed an administrative monetary penalty of RM3.4 million on CIMB Bank Berhad on 22 February 2019 and a compound of RM6.4 million on 17 May 2019 for breaches in 2018 of its rules on the management of customer information, including disclosure of customer information to third parties. CIMB Islamic Bank Berhad was penalised separately. The actions were published on 27 May 2023.

unauthorized disclosure of customer information to third parties
Bank Negara MalaysiaFinal decisionPenalty MYR 3.4 million; Compound MYR 6.4 millionPrimary source
Clients and standing

Client experience and financial standing

What clients meet at CIMB, read from complaint registers, ombudsman decisions and court records, independent reporting and what clients and their advisers tell PPLI.com in confidence. Announcements by the bank, awards and marketing material are left out.

UHNW client ratings

1.2 out of 5, based on 6 client ratings for this booking centre.

What clients report

FIDReC handles complaints against banks in Singapore but publishes no register of decisions by firm, and no complaints figures are published for CIMB Bank Berhad, Singapore Branch. Its Singapore court appearances are as a creditor in the Panoil Petroleum bunker fuel litigation, where it lost one appeal in March 2021 and won another in May 2021. In Malaysia, Bank Negara Malaysia penalised the bank in 2019 for disclosing customer information to a third party in 2018, with a compound of MYR 6.4 million and a penalty of MYR 3.4 million, and in July 2024 for outages of e-banking, ATM and card services on 8 and 9 April 2024.

Worth raising with the bank

  • Ask whether data of Singapore branch clients is held on systems run from Malaysia, given Bank Negara Malaysia's penalties on the bank for disclosing customer information in 2018 and for the service outages of April 2024.

Financial standing

Credit ratings published by the agencies, dated by the latest agency or bank document that confirms them
AgencyRatingOutlookAs ofRated company
S&PA- / A-2 issuer credit ratingStableCIMB Bank Berhad
Moody'sA3 / P-2 foreign currency deposit ratingStableCIMB Bank Berhad
Moody'sBaa1 / P-2 issuer ratingStableCIMB Group Holdings Berhad (parent)
What it costs

What CIMB charges, compared

CIMB does not publish a private banking tariff; the only schedule on its site is written for retail accounts. Its figures are shown below as read on 6 November 2026, so a family knows what the bank puts in public, but they are not compared with the private banking schedules of other banks and earn no fee stars. Private clients of CIMB are priced individually.

FeeCIMBOther banksAgainst the others
Minimum annual feeper year, or fee below the asset thresholdUSD 185 a yearSGD 20 per month SourceRetail schedule, shown as published and not compared with private banking terms
Outgoing international transferper transfer, standardUSD 15SGD 20 SourceRetail schedule, shown as published and not compared with private banking terms
Closing the accountone offUSD 15SGD 20 SourceRetail schedule, shown as published and not compared with private banking terms

Not in the published schedule: custody and safekeeping, discretionary mandate, advisory mandate, equity trade, bond trade, third party fund subscription, currency conversion, account maintenance, transfer of securities to another bank, lombard loan margin.

Sources.

  1. CIMB Preferred Account fees and charges, read on 6 November 2026. CIMB Bank Berhad (Singapore). Affluent (Preferred) segment, not private banking. Web page.
  2. Accounts fees and charges, read on 6 November 2026. Retail deposit account fees. Web page.
  3. CIMB Private Banking Terms and Conditions, General Terms and Conditions, read on 6 November 2026. Entity: CIMB Bank Berhad, acting through its Singapore branch. No figures; Clause 13.1(b): The Client may obtain information regarding such fees on request.

How the comparison works: USD 25 million booked with the bank: half under a discretionary balanced mandate, half in custody with advice; 24 equity trades of USD 250,000 and 8 bond trades of USD 500,000 a year; 6 currency conversions of USD 1 million; 24 outgoing international transfers. Tiered fees are applied to those amounts tranche by tranche, stated minimums are applied, and amounts are converted at indicative rates of 2026-11-06. Read how we compare fees.

The bank at a glance

Identity, protection and services

Legal identity

Legal nameCIMB Bank Berhad, Singapore Branch
LEI549300PLDYJMOW8QKZ45
LicenceFull Bank; also Exempt Capital Markets Services Entity, Exempt Financial Adviser, Exempt Trust Company  Source
RegulatorMAS
Legal formBranch of CIMB Bank Berhad
OwnerBranch of CIMB Bank Berhad (Kuala Lumpur)  Source

Ownership

Group parentCIMB Group Holdings Berhad (listed, Bursa Malaysia)
Control

Ownership is shown as published, with its date. It describes who owns the bank; it does not, by itself, suggest any wrongdoing by the bank or its owners.

Financial strength, as reported

Credit ratingsS&P A- / A-2 issuer credit rating; Moody's A3 / P-2 foreign currency deposit rating; Moody's Baa1 / P-2 issuer rating (CIMB Group Holdings Berhad (parent))
CET1 ratio13.4% (31 Dec 2025)
Total assetsMYR 437.9 billion (31 Dec 2025)
Shareholders' equityMYR 42.2 billion (31 Dec 2025)
Net profitMYR 5.2 billion (31 Dec 2025)

These are the published figures of CIMB Bank Berhad (bank level), which reports for this bank. Source: CIMB Bank Berhad FY2025 audited financial statements.

Services published for this booking unit

Private clients
Discretionary management
Advisory mandates
Custody only (execution and safekeeping)
Lombard lending
Mortgage lending
Multi currency accounts
Trust and fiduciary services
Family office services
Wealth planning
Consolidated reporting
External asset manager desk

Offered at this booking centreOffered by the group, not confirmed hereNot located, which does not mean unavailable
Checked on the bank's own pages, 2 November 2026.

Access and costs

Minimum relationshipSGD 1 million  Source
US personsNot published
Fee schedulePublished  Source  Compared below
Third party paymentsNot published
Transfer out termsNot published

Protection of client assets

Deposit protectionFull banks in Singapore, including local banks and qualifying full banks, are members of the SDIC Deposit Insurance Scheme unless exempted by MAS: S$100,000 per depositor per member. Membership taken from the SDIC rule; the named member list is to be checked. Only eligible Singapore-dollar deposits are insured; deposits in US dollars or other currencies are not covered.
Custody lawNot published
Custody termsNot published

Before opening an account

  • Custody agreement. Ask for the agreement covering the account you would open. Which entity holds the securities, what law governs the account, and where would the assets be held if a sub-custodian is used?
  • Relationship minimum. The published figure cited above is SGD 1 million. Ask whether it applies to the proposed mandate and whether assets in related accounts, entities or currencies count toward it.
  • Closing the account. The retail tariff shown in the review comes to USD 15 as a closure charge. Ask for a separate estimate of any sale, transfer or third-party charges that would apply to your holdings. See published fees.
Your experience

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If you bank with CIMB or advise clients who do, your experience forms part of its PPLI.com rating. Every response is read by the editor and treated in strict confidence.

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Our commitment to confidentiality

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Sources

All 11 documents cited on this page, by subject.

Regulatory and legal record

  1. Bank Negara Malaysia: Administrative monetary penalty for prolonged disruption of digital banking, ATM and card services, 29 July 2024bnm.gov.my
  2. Bank Negara Malaysia: Administrative monetary penalty for failing to comply with statistical reporting requirements, 30 January 2024bnm.gov.my
  3. Bank Negara Malaysia: Administrative monetary penalty and compound for unauthorised disclosure of customer information, 17 May 2019bnm.gov.my

Fees

  1. CIMB: Accountscimb.com.sg · Fees
  2. CIMB: Cimb preferred accountcimb.com.sg · Fees
  3. CIMB: Tnc private banking (PDF)cimb.com.sg · Fees

Identity, ownership, finances and services

  1. Monetary Authority of Singapore: 3336 CIMB BANK BERHADeservices.mas.gov.sg · Licence
  2. CIMB Bank Berhad FY2025 audited financial statementscimb.com.sg · Financial strength
  3. cimbpreferred.com.sg: Preferred bankingcimbpreferred.com.sg · Services
  4. cimbpreferred.com.sg: Cimb private property loancimbpreferred.com.sg · Services

The bank

  1. CIMB, websitecimb.com.sg

For CIMB

Before we publish a significant negative finding that is not already public, we give the bank the facts and time to comment, on the same timetable for every bank. Decisions of regulators and courts are shown as they were published. Corrections we verify are published with the date of the change. Write to [email protected] quoting reference BK-SG-CIMB-SG-5AADA8.

Reviewing this file with us

Families and their advisers read this file before they open an account. It can only be as complete as the documents we can find, and much of what sets a private bank apart, from its custody terms to the way a client team works, is rarely published.

If you represent CIMB, one of our Bank Intelligence analysts can go through the file with you: correct anything that is out of date, add terms and documents that are not yet public, and set out what has improved since our last edition. The review is a paid engagement for the analyst's time and research.

The rating itself stays with our editor and follows what the documents show, so we cannot promise a particular result. When a review changes the file, this page notes that the bank took part, with the date and what was added.

Speak to an analyst

About this file

Researched by the PPLI.com research desk from the public sources listed. The rating is our editorial opinion; read how we rate.

Important information. Editorial opinion of PPLI.com on the date shown, based on public information, client experience and editorial judgment. Not a statement of fact, a credit rating or investment, legal, tax or financial advice; verify with the bank and your own advisers before acting. No liability is accepted for reliance on this content. Bank names and logos are used for identification only. Ratings are updated every quarter. This is the Q4 2026 edition, and a rating can change between editions if something material happens. Full disclaimer
Rating signed by Noam Cohen, Editor, Bank IntelligenceReviewed 6 November 2026Methodology 2.4Reference BK-SG-CIMB-SG-5AADA8
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