After the great growth locally, the Islamic Middle East Bank expanded beyond the UAE market and entered the Malaysian market in 2006 after it was granted the full banking license to be the first foreign bank in Malaysia by the Bank of Negara Malaysia. Malaysia is the first step of the bank in the Southeast Asia banking market, as the core banking products were introduced to the Asian market and provided a whole new experience of Islamic banking. Middle East Islamic Bank currently has 19 branches in Malaysia with plans to increase the number of its branches in the future.