The Affin Bank

Affin Bank is a customer in Malaysia we've worked with quite extensively. A lot of their infrastructure is running on our product and sometime back they agreed to do a customer video for us. They are a great and successful partner, and a point of pride for the account team, the region and the company. During the conference yesterday, the account team decided to show us the result of their installation and it had a terrific impact, especially on the English speakers. I almost had to be removed from the room.

Part of the video shows a small, shy woman in Islamic dress, talking nervously to the camera about how great our products are, and about how much they have been to Affin Bank. She's clearly a little afraid of the camera and is probably using cue cards because there are some odd pauses in her dialog. For example:

"SQL Server has really helped us raise the customer satisfaction .... at the Affin Bank."
"Microsoft ... makes a good partner... for the Affin Bank"
"The Affin Bank has the largest ... community of users in Malaysia"
"I'm proud to part of the ... Microsoft community for the Affin bank"

I laughed so hard at this, I nearly peed. The other English speakers seated next to me were no help at all because they were hardly keeping it together. Several people had to leave the room, clearly on the verge of busting a gut.

Just about the time a few of us got control, just a hair shy of embarrassing ourselves in front of the account team, our partners and the other team members in the room, after a few deep breaths, I turned to the guy next to me and said,

"I need some cab fare, do you know where the Affin ATM is?"

And that threw us over the edge!

Why is this funny? What's so hilarious about a small Islamic woman repeating the name of her bank every 30 seconds?

The name is pronounced "F-in"