Aria Putera Ismail has been appointed as the new Chief Executive Officer of SME Bank effective 3 September 2018. A Senior Management with over 18 years of progressive experience within the banking and investment industry, Aria specializes in achieving financial goals and providing Shariah compliant solutions, deals negotiations and product innovations across jurisdictions to improve profitability and transactional efficiency.

Prior to this, Aria was the President Director/Chief Executive Officer of Maybank Syariah Indonesia (MSI), focusing on small, medium and large corporate segments in Indonesia. He is also responsible for the re-strategising Syariah banking plan for the Group in Indonesia, including talent development, product innovation and new markets. He was also the Director, Global Markets Islamic of Maybank Islamic Berhad (MIB), the largest Islamic Bank in the Asia Pacific Region. In his capacity as the Director of Global Markets Islamic, he is responsible for managing and overseeing the global Islamic treasury operations of the banking group and developing strategies to enhance Islamic treasury capabilities and product offerings. Since joining MIB, he has engaged with regulators from different countries and collaborated with many banking and financial institutions in ASEAN to develop cross-border initiatives and increase Islamic financial transactions between the countries.

Before Maybank Islamic, Aria was the General Manager of Global Markets Islamic at Hong Leong Islamic Bank where he assisted the group to successfully launch Hong Kong’s first Islamic Banking Window in 2008. He was able to repeat this success for Maybank Islamic in 2012 by establishing Islamic window for Maybank Berhad’s Hong Kong Branch.

Aria started his career as an officer with Maybank Finance Berhad in 2000 and later joined Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) in 2001. As a valued member of the BNM, and in recognition of his achievements and contributions, he was awarded the Creative and Innovation Award (ISCAP project), Creative Award (Sukuk Bank Negara Malaysia) and Teamwork Award (Teras project) in 2005 and 2002 respectively.

Aria holds an MBA, majoring in Islamic Banking and Finance from the International Islamic University of Malaysia, BBA (Hons) Finance and Diploma in Investment Analysis from Universiti Teknologi MARA. He is an active member of the Capital Markets and Treasury Committee (CMTC) of the Association of Islamic Banking Institutions in Malaysia (AIBIM) since 2008, where he is responsible in promoting cross border treasury business in the region and creating new treasury products.

Driven by his passion in FinTech and Innovations in banking and financing, Aria is expected to take SME Bank to a higher level of achievement in nurturing and developing the SMEs.