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Access online versions of all of The Asian Banker's print publications to read full versions of all articles with full colour pictures and all graphs, charts and data. Clicking on the covers and the links will open up the interactive e-reader.
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Bridging the technology gap in banking
Despite a global surge in technology spending, many bank boards lag in tech expertise, significantly affecting their strategic decisions and ability to innovate. With 49% of the world’s top banks having less than 10% of board members versed in technology, the gap between traditional banking systems and modern digital demands widens.
This issue covers a range of subjects that reflects the industry as it confronts legacy systems and increasing technological disruptions, and the imperative for board-level tech fluency critical for navigating today’s financial landscape.
Also in this issue, we demystify the world of digital assets, tokenisation, and cryptocurrencies. Financial institutions and regulators are moving in tandem to transition the industry to new forms of money, increasing asset liquidity, and democratising wealth. In the end, old and new money will coexist. |
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Issue: 193
Seoul summit sets stage for digital finance revolution
The Digital Banking Annual Meeting in Seoul in March signals a significant shift towards digital transformations in retail finance. In this issue, TABInsights unveils global retail banking benchmarks, while notable South Korean leaders Cho Yong-byoung, Hong Min-taek, Daniel Yun, and Bumjun Shin demonstrate their commitment to innovation and ethical banking.
The Seoul AI Innovation Study Tour will take place before the meeting, providing insights into cutting-edge financial technologies at the event. Dominating the discussions will be topics on open finance ecosystems, collaboration, banking ethics, customer empowerment, digital transformation, and financial inclusion, influencing the future of a digital, collaborative, and customer-centric financial world. Stay tuned online and in upcoming issues for updates on the meeting and the tour.
Join us online at The Digital Banking Annual Meeting in Seoul. Catch the livestream here:
LinkedIn : https://bit.ly/49NiXgO
Facebook : https://bit.ly/3OYO2pT
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Issue: 192
Global Banking Industry Outlook 2024
In 2024, global banks must navigate interest rate variations, technology advances, economic disparities, and changing laws. China’s economic slump and geopolitical tensions exacerbate issues on many fronts. Banks must balance innovation and ethics, manage credit risks, adjust to rising interest rates, and monitor the real estate market. The financial industry is using artificial intelligence, blockchain, and cloud computing to improve operations and customer service. Digitalisation raises cybersecurity and regulatory worries. Sustainable finance grows as banks focus on environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria and green activities to promote resilience, innovation, and global solutions; transparency and ESG metrics standardisation are crucial. Get up to speed on these pressing issues with detailed research in this special edition.
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Issue: 191
Islamic banks surpassing traditional counterparts in sustainable growth
Islamic banking, rooted in Shariah-law principles, excels in growth and resilience, surpassing traditional commercial banks, as evidenced by TAB Global’s Ranking of the World’s 100 Largest and Strongest Islamic Banks. Middle Eastern giants like Al Rajhi dominate in size, while Asian counterparts shine in asset quality. With over 20% annual growth, Islamic banks emphasise their pivotal role in sustainable finance. This trend underscores their global prominence, making them formidable competitors in the financial industry.
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Issue: 190A
2023/2024 Global Leaders in Financial Institutions and Transaction Finance
As transaction banking expands globally, so does our directory. In this 2023-2024 edition of the Global Leaders in Financial Institutions and Transaction Banking Directory, we are pleased to offer an updated, comprehensive guide to leading institutions and practitioners in the industry worldwide. TAB Global acknowledges individuals shaping transaction finance on regional and global levels through its List of Leading Practitioners programme.
The global directory includes trends, best practice features, commentaries, and analyses that encapsulate the most pressing issues confronting the industry and key stakeholders today. Click here to view full version.
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Issue: 190
The annual definitive ranking and survey of The World's Largest and Strongest Banks
This is the inaugural TAB Global 1000 World’s Largest and Strongest Banks Ranking 2023. This comprehensive assessment represents a significant milestone as it encompasses a diverse range of 1000 banks and financial holding companies from across the globe. Institutions from 98 countries and territories have been evaluated based on financial performance for the fiscal year 2022.
Canada’s Bank of Montreal takes the top spot with an exceptional risk profile and asset quality, solidifying its position as the world’s strongest bank in 2023.
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Issue: 189A
2023/2024 Global Leaders in Banking and Financial Technology
The 2023-2024 Global Leaders in Financial Technology Directory and Handbook reaffirms our commitment to providing comprehensive insights into the financial technology industry. Since 2015, our List of Leading Practitioners (LLP) programme has recognised individuals shaping technological advancements regionally and globally.
Beyond a prominent practitioner list, this directory offers thought-provoking articles, insightful commentary, and in-depth analyses addressing industry challenges. It fosters connections across institutions and geographies, facilitating dialogue among participants, and enhancing industry data, research, and benchmarks.
This evolving resource is available at listofleadingpractitioners.theasianbanker.com
We value your insight and feedback on this directory and the LLP programme—reach out, let’s talk.
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Issue: 189
The Leadership Achievement Edition Recognising Visionaries in Finance
This edition spotlights influential leaders shaping the global financial landscape—the annual Leadership Achievement Awards pay tribute to titans of the industry who dare to breach conventions. The publication also covers the Future of Finance Summit 2023, including events like the Financial Technology Innovation Conference and CEO Leadership Dialogue. Keynotes by illustrious industry pundits Howard Davies and Barney Frank offer critical takeaways.
The feature story explores how banks guide sustainable financial supply chain management for corporate clients, emphasising collaborative solutions for enduring profitability and societal benefits.
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Issue: 188
The Excellence in Retail Financial Services Awards 2023
The 22nd Heads of Retail Finance Dialogue held in conjunction with The Asian Banker Excellence in Retail Financial Services programme in Hanoi, Vietnam, provided a platform for industry experts to exchange insights, share best practices and inspire innovation. The discussions centred on identifying strategies to navigate the evolving landscape, enhance customer experiences, and foster long-term profitability in a digital environment.
This year, we introduced the Global Excellence in Retail Financial Services Awards to recognise the leading retail banks, digital banks, and platforms around the world.
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Issue: 187
Banking in the age of technological disruptions and regulatory challenges
As Asia explores emerging technologies like blockchain and digital currencies, careful evaluation of their feasibility and efficiency in cross-border transactions is essential. Implementing robust security measures and fraud prevention mechanisms is crucial to building trust and safeguarding transactions. The ongoing efforts towards payment integration and connectivity in Asia unlock significant potential for incumbent commercial banks and fintech payment service providers.
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Issue: 186
The Excellence in Retail Financial Services Global Rankings
Since its inception 22 years ago, The Asian Banker Excellence in Retail Financial Services programme remains the most rigorous, prestigious and transparent in the world.
This year, we elevated the programme into the Excellence in Retail Financial Services Global Awards.
We do this to fill a void. A global ranking of retail finance institutions based on objective criteria, transparent scorecard and rigorous research—one that truly determines the best—does not exist.
Many have—and more will try—to emulate The Asian Banker Excellence award programmes, but none can replicate our rigor and transparency, nor support our selection criteria with the same level of research, content and community or industry engagement.
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Issue: 185
The Asia Pacific Banking Industry Outlook 2023
Most parts of the world and advanced economies such as the United States and European Union are expected to experience a significant slowdown in growth from 2.7% in 2022 to just 1.2% in 2023.
However, growth in the emerging and developing economies are forecasted to continue to rise moderately from 3.9% in 2022 to 4% in 2023.
In particular, growth in Asia is expected to increase to 5.3% in 2023 and 5.2% in 2024, led by China’s strong recovery of 5.2% after a worse-than-expected 4.3% in 2022.
Growth in the Middle East is projected to fall from 5.3% in 2022 to 3.2% in 2023; lower oil production in Saudi Arabia will reflect slower-than-expected growth. Meanwhile, growth in Sub-Saharan Africa is projected to moderate to 3.8% in 2023 due to COVID-19 and increase to 4.1% in 2024.
Also in this issue, UnionBank president and CEO describes how technology, data, culture and people play important roles in its digital transformation.
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Issue: 184
Shaping the future of digital money
The Bank for International Settlement (BIS) Innovation Hub in its report, Project mBridge: Connecting economies through CBDC has validated the proposition that central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) can substantially increase the speed of cross-border payments from multiple days to near real-time, while also reducing cost of approximately $120 billion annually, stemming mainly from inefficiencies that introduce settlement risk to the cross-border payment and settlement system.
This is particularly beneficial to the emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs) which face greater challenges when global banks started to rationalise their correspondent networks and services as part of global de-risking in the aftermath of the Great Financial Crisis, leaving them with limited access to the global financial system as cross-border transactions are settled in a few major currencies and FX trading in non-major currency pairs remains limited. This leaves EMDEs exposed to the collateral effects of the monetary policies of the jurisdictions of these major currencies and attendant financial stability risks, such as credit cycles. In addition, given the limited access to international financial markets and currencies of these economies, they face heightened liquidity risks in times of global financial disruptions.
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Issue: 183
Credit risk management and asset quality key to bank strength in 2022 ranking
To better reflect the impact of the pandemic on the balance sheet performance of banks in the 2022 ranking of strongest banks, specific consideration was given to the effect of banks’ digitalisation and social distancing measures on cost-to-income ratio (CIR) and cost of funding, as well as the impact of state-supported credit relief and repayment moratorium on asset quality, and the consequence of historically low interest rates on net interest margin, income and profitability. Analysis shows that loan loss reserves to gross non-performing loans ratio, assets to gross domestic product (GDP) ratio, capital adequacy ratio and CIR and were significantly correlated to the overall strength score.
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Issue: 182
Leading towards a responsible and sustainable future
In recent years, the dialogue on sustainable and responsible
leadership in the financial services sector has gathered pace.
There is a realisation that leaders no longer have the luxury to
simply react to the climate change crisis, as they do other crises.
They have to lead proactively and pre-emptively. In doing so, they
will recognise and embrace their new roles and responsibilities
towards society and not just the stakeholders of the financial
institutions they lead.
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Issue: 181
The Excellence in Retail Financial Services Awards 2022
The relatively recent emergence of fintech and techfin lending platform companies has transformed the banking landscape in Southeast Asia. By increasing digitalisation of financial services, they have brought innovation in product and service personalisation as well as risk management and fraud prevention at a scale and speed never seen before, onboarding millions of financial services users, many for the first time. In a recent ranking of the global top 100 digital-only banks, The Asian Banker found that only 29 are profit making in 2021. Average time to profitability is between two and three years with an average return on equity (ROE) of about 16%.
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Issue: 180
Global Top 100 Digital-Only Banks Ranking: No easy path to profitability
To track the increasing array of standalone virtual, neo or challenger banks, The Asian Banker has just launched the world’s first comprehensive assessment of global digital-only banks, to rank them according to a balanced scorecard derived from an objective and transparent set of evaluation criteria. There is no shortage of coverage of digital banks today. However, most lack a clear and specific definition of a digital bank as well as a set of objective and transparent criteria to assess and rank them. This inaugural annual ranking aims to address this gap by assessing them on a more consolidated and consistent global perspective. The Global Top 100 Best Digital-Only Banks Ranking focuses on the most successful first and second generation digital only banks that operate independently of traditional commercial banks and offer a unique virtual customer experience.
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Issue: 179
The Asia Pacific Banking Industry Outlook 2022
The World Bank in its latest Global Economic Prospects report expects global growth to slow markedly from 5.5% in 2021 to 4.1% in 2022 and 3.2% in 2023 as the build-up of demand evaporates and fiscal and monetary support start to unwind around the world. Advanced, East Asia and Pacific economies are forecasted to shrink the most while the Middle East, Africa and South Asia will continue to expand.
The slowdown coincides with an increasing divergence in growth rates between advanced economies and emerging and developing economies. Growth in advanced economies is expected to slow from 5% in 2021 to 3.8% in 2022 and 2.3% in 2023, that it says will sustain output and investment to pre-pandemic levels. However, in emerging and developing economies, growth is expected to fall more precipitously from 6.3% in 2021 to 4.6% in 2022 and 4.4% in 2023.
While the advanced economies are expected to achieve full recovery in 2023, the World Bank expects outputs in emerging and developing economies to remain at least 4% below pre-pandemic trends.
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Issue: 178
Fragmented approach masks potential at trade digitalisation
As the trade finance industry collectively progresses to address challenges around digital fragmentation and isolation, adoption of standard solutions and well-established legal frameworks along with technology as an enabler will play critical roles in truly digitalising trade. The paper-heavy, multi-party, and multi-process nature of trade finance makes the task of effectively digitalising a trade ecosystem significantly complex. Furthermore, the myriad of rules and regulations covering multiple countries and industries that creates differing standards, legal frameworks, practices and technologies, renders the effort towards end-to-end trade digitisation siloed.
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Issue: 177
Making sense of the AB500 strongest banks ranking
The Asian Banker 500 (AB500) was started in 2001 in the wake of the Asian financial crisis, which saw the collapse and consolidation of financial markets and systems in the region. The ranking attempted to provide the first independent and objective measure of the strength of banks that emerged from the deep reform and recapitalisation that followed the crisis. It is based on a detailed and transparent scorecard that ranks commercial banks and financial holding companies on six criteria of balance sheet performance; namely the ability to scale, balance sheet growth, risk profile, profitability, asset quality and liquidity, covered by 12 specific factors.
This year, to better reflect the impact of the pandemic on the balance sheet performance of banks, specific consideration was given to the impact of banks’ digitalisation and social distancing measures on cost to income ratio (CIR) and cost of funding, impact of state supported credit relief and repayment moratorium on asset quality, and impact of historical low interest rate on net interest margin, income and profitability.
A statistical analysis was conducted to determine the correlation between the 12 balance sheet factors and the overall strength score of the 500 banks evaluated show that loan loss reserves to gross non-performing loans (LLRs/GNPLs) ratio, CIR, capital adequacy ratio (CAR) and assets to GDP ratio were significantly correlated to the overall strength score.
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Issue: 176
Financial system resilience and stability underpin industry innovations
This year, we recognise four leaders from a range of institutions and markets that are pushing the frontier of innovations in ecommerce, financial services and supply chains.
Victor Li, CEO of Pintec Technologies; William Tanuwijaya, co-founder and CEO of Tokopedia, Nikhilesh Goel, co-founder and group CEO of Validus Capital; and Nguyen Hung, CEO of TPBank, received this year’s innovation leadership award for their achievements in China, Indonesia, Singapore and Vietnam respectively.
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Issue: 175A
Ping An Bank makes momentous shift in retail banking
The competitive advantages of digital capabilities and cost advantages were leveraged particularly well by Chinese commercial banks despite a challenging operating environment. Ping An Bank has doubled its business scale and operating efficiency, with growth rates far exceeding its peers. Ping An Bank’s ascent to become the top retail bank in China and the world signals a momentous industry shift that an insurance-led and technology-driven financial conglomerate is driving some of the most impactful changes in the sector. WeBank excelled in scaling its digital capabilities and built China's first fully autonomous and controllable distributed ledger system that supports more than 360 million transactions per day, reflecting a broader trend where blockchain-based applications with retail banking use cases are increasingly becoming mainstream.
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Issue: 175
The Excellence in Retail Financial Services Awards 2021
The Asian Banker has been tracking, evaluating and calibrating financial institutions that are on the journey to transform themselves into more competitive digital players. We assess the preparedness of institutions to compete and win in the digital world. We rank and calibrate different types of institutions: commercial banks, digital only banks, platform-based marketplace players, financial technology companies and others, in how effective they are at embracing disruption and innovating.
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Issue: 174
The central bank digital currency disruption has arrived!
Central bank digital currency (CBDC) is already a reality. The Central Bank of the Bahamas has the distinction of launching the world’s first CBDC, the Sand Dollar, in October 2020. China is perhaps most advanced in the preparation for the retail application of its CBDC, the digital RMB. While CBDC trials and implementations so far focused on domestic and mainly retail use, they have the potential to enhance the efficiency of cross-border payments.
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Issue: 173
How BNPL is changing the payment business
The rapid transformation of domestic and cross-border payments brings new opportunities and challenges for financial institutions. Amid shrinking payment revenues, players are rethinking their business models to better monetise data insights and integrate financing options such as “buy now, pay later” (BNPL). Practitioners and experts explore the impact of the changing payment landscape, emerging value propositions, and key technology enablers on future growth of the industry.
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Issue: 172A
2020-2021 Asia Pacific Leaders in Financial Institutions and Transaction Finance Directory
The directory recognises leading practitioners in financial institutions who are shaping the transaction finance business on the regional and global fronts. The Asian Banker identifies, recognises, and tracks these practitioners on an ongoing basis through its List of Leading Practitioners (LLP) programme. It also profiles international and domestic institutions active in the transaction finance business, and captures key product and service capabilities. It also contains features, commentaries, and analyses that summarise the most pressing issues that the industry and key stakeholders face.
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Issue: 172
No respite despite vaccines
The outlook for the banking industry in 2021 is shaped by persistent and significant risks to asset quality and profitability as the start of COVID-19 vaccination may not ensure even and sustained economic recovery. Meanwhile, how are the balance sheets of banks in Asia Pacific, the Middle East and Africa affected by the pandemic? The 2020 Asian Banker 500 annual ranking of the largest and strongest banks has incorporated the latest financial data to reflect the impact of the pandemic on banks financial performance during the course of the crisis.
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Issue: 171A
2020-2021 Asia Pacific Leaders in Banking and Financial Technology
In this 2020-2021 edition of the Asia Pacific Leaders in Financial Technology Directory and Handbook, we are pleased to share an updated and comprehensive guide to leading institutions and practitioners in the industry in the Asia Pacific region. The Asian Banker recognises the men and women who are shaping technology and businesses on both regional and global fronts and whose work and influence are relevant to the Asia Pacific and other regions through its List of Leading Practitioners (LLP) programme. The directory also contains a feature on Big Tech companies’ expansion into financial services, and analyses of the latest banking and financial technology developments and trends that summarise the most pressing issues that the industry and key stakeholders face today.
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Issue: 171
Leading in a crisis
Leadership in times of crisis is very different from leading in normal times. The challenge for leaders is to adjust to radically new situations and changed circumstances where the tried and tested may not work and playbooks do not exist. In this issue, we profile leaders (Leadership achievement special report from pages 22 to 40) who have to take exceptional measures under extraordinary circumstances to communicate and execute their responses.
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Issue: 170
The Excellence in Retail Financial Services Awards 2020
The retail financial services industry continues to undergo a process of transformation in terms of how it is connecting and servicing customers. The disruption from fintech players and platform providers reverberates across the industry as new ecosystems are formed and distinct competitive advantages are realised through the application of emerging technologies. The top 10 banks evaluated from this year’s programme of more than 100 institutions for the “Best Retail Bank in 2020” completely reflect this paradigm shift.
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Issue: 169
Battle for cross-border payments will reshape financial services
The novel coronavirus has proven to be much more virulent and deadly than initially assessed. The priorities now are to revive sectors, especially small businesses that have been worst hit, to restore jobs and the livelihoods of workers and to reconfigure the economy for a post COVID-19 world. There will be long-term implications that will permanently change how the global economy, international trade, commerce and financial system will operate in the future. The financial system is expected to accelerate its digital transformation and the adoption of online and remote transactions.
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Issue: 168
Are central banks issuing digital banking licences to counter the threat of fintechs and big techs?
In Asia Pacific, the first generation of internet and direct banks were introduced in Australia and Japan where ING Direct and Japan Net Bank were respectively launched in 2000. However, when mobile and API technology came of age, the landscape was transformed by Chinese tech giants such as Alibaba and Tencent. WeBank, the digital banking subsidiary of Tencent started operating in China back in 2015. As more jurisdictions recognise that financial services will become increasingly digitalised, similar regulations have also been issued in Hong Kong, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan. It is expected that more regulators in the region will follow suit as the interest in digital financial services grows as reflected in the funding attracted by players from the private sector and venture capitalists.
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Issue: 167
The Asia Pacific Banking Industry Outlook 2020
Compressed margins and bad debts will curtail bank profits in 2020
Outlook for the banking industry in Asia Pacific turns negative as region confronts weaker economic, investment and trade conditions
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Issue: 166
Managing Asian Wealth - How China Changes the Landscape
The strong wealth creation growth in China is changing the distribution of wealth across Asia Pacific.By 2024, the number of UHNW individuals in the Asia Pacific region is expected to grow at an average of 8% per annum, to reach a total of nearly 66,000, of whom 42% will be from China. As a result the wealth management market in the region is undergoing major shifts from fixed-income investment to multi-asset investment, from the domestic market to the global markets, from short-term speculation to long-term horizon, from single products and opportunities to diversified portfolios, from wealth generation by first-generation entrepreneurs to succession by the second generation of wealth managers.
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Issue: 165A
2019-2020 Asia Pacific Leaders in Financial Institutions and Transaction Banking Directory
The directory recognises leading practitioners who are shaping the business on the regional and global fronts, and whose work or influence are relevant to the Asia Pacific and other regions. The Asian Banker identifies, recognises, and tracks these practitioners on an ongoing basis through its List of Leading Practitioners (LLP) programme. It also profiles international and domestic institutions active in the transaction banking business, and captures key product and service capabilities. It also contains features, commentaries, and analyses that summarise the most pressing issues that the industry and key stakeholders face. By bringing together under one programme and directory these leading industry experts, The Asian Banker creates an avenue for practitioners to create linkages with each other across institutions,
borders, and business lines.
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Issue: 165
Stronger headwinds ahead
As Chinese banks continue to dominate the list of largest banks, others in Asia Pacific face mounting pressure to sustain performance. The slowing economic growth and the ongoing US-China trade tension are posing a risk for Asia Pacific banking sector. Banks are also facing fiercer competition from new comers. Nonetheless, the banks in the region have been continuing their digital transformation and reshaping the business models to boost competitiveness.
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Issue: 164
2019-2020 Asia Pacific Leaders in Banking and Financial Technology
In this 2019-2020 edition of the Asia Pacific Leaders in Financial Technology Directory and Handbook, we are pleased to share an updated and comprehensive guide to leading institutions and practitioners in the industry in the Asia Pacific region. The Asian Banker recognises the men and women who are shaping technology and businesses on both regional and global fronts and whose work and influence are relevant to the Asia Pacific and other regions through its List of Leading Practitioners (LLP) programme. The directory also contains features, commentaries and analyses that summaries the most pressing issues that the industry and key stakeholders face today
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Issue: 163
Leaders in a changing world
In searching for leaders who best exemplify the future of the financial services industry that is being dramatically transformed by regulation, technology and new business models, The Asian Banker looks for leaders who have the vision to navigate the challenges that confront their individual organisations and the industry as a whole. Leaders who understand that banks and bankers occupy a position of trust and confidence, and that this is constantly under siege.
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Issue: 162
The Excellence in Retail Financial Services Awards 2019
The Asian Banker has been tracking, evaluating and calibrating financial institutions that are on the journey to transform themselves into more competitive digital players. We assess the preparedness of institutions to compete and win in the digital world. We rank and calibrate different types of institutions: commercial banks, digital only banks, platform-based marketplace players, financial technology companies and others, in how effective they are at embracing disruption and innovating.
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Issue: 161
Build a community around your institution.
Platforms and ecosystems are the latest buzzwords in the financial services industry. Banks and financial institutions that have traditionally operated as monoliths, owning huge proprietary distribution and sales networks and being part of largely opaque industry associations, are now embracing open ecosystems, platforms and learning to create communities of loyal active users around them.
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Issue: 160
How will banks recapture remittances and FX services from MTOs
A recent study by Ptolemus shows that the mobile UBI market has grown to 4.8 million policyholders as of the second quarter of 2018, representing almost a quarter of the total. It expects the global market for mobile UBI to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 39% up to 2025 to reach 60 million users, and much of that will come from Asia Pacific, and China in particular.
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Issue: 159
The Asia Pacific Banking Industry Outlook 2019
The World Bank in its January 2019 Global Economic Prospects report, ominously subtitled “Darkening Skies”, warned that “financial market pressures and trade tensions could escalate, denting confidence and further setting back growth prospects in emerging market and developing countries”. This year, global economic growth is expected to slow further in a majority of advanced economies and in about a third of emerging market and developing economies.
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Issue: 158
Understanding Asia`s high net worth market
In this issue, we focus on the business of managing wealth in Asia Pacific. According to the World Wealth Report 2018, Asia Pacific’s share of global high net worth individual (HNWI) wealth in 2017 has surpassed that of North America to reach 30.8%, and continues to grow faster than any other region.
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Issue: 157A
Asia Pacific Leaders in Financial Institutions and Transaction Banking Directory 2018/19
In this 2018/19 edition of the Asia Pacific Leaders in Financial Institutions and Transaction Banking Directory, we are pleased to update this comprehensive guide to leading institutions and practitioners in the industry in the Asia Pacific region. The directory recognises leading practitioners- men and women who are shaping the business on the regional and global fronts, and whose work or influence are relevant to the Asia Pacific and other regions.
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Issue: 157
The big clean-up
As economies become increasingly digitalised, the global online marketplace and ecommerce
platforms such as Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple (GAFA) and Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, (BAT) which boast billion sized customer bases and trillion-dollar capitalisation, have become more serious about their foray into financial services. They will further fragment the structure of global finance and no doubt diminish the role of banks, even globally systemically important ones. If so, when do these mega tech firms come under the same regulatory scrutiny and oversight?
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Issue: 156
Asia Pacific Leaders in Banking and Financial Technology
New technologies and operating models continue to transform the financial services industry in Asia Pacific, driving institutions to re-evaluate their existing technology platforms, applications and re-design their processes to improve customer experience. In this 2018/19 edition of the Asia Pacific Leaders in Banking and Financial Technology Directory and Handbook, we are pleased to update this comprehensive guide to leading practitioners who are shaping technology and business on the regional and global fronts.
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Issue: 155
Stalwarts who reshaped the economic and financial landscape of Asia
In this issue, we profile the winners of Asian Banker Leadership Achievement Awards and turn our attention to people who not only run their institutions exceptionally well, made real and lasting changes to the financial systems and economies but also forever transformed the countries that they operate in. This year’s William “Bill” Seidman Award for Lifetime Achievement in Leadership in the Financial Services Industry awards were presented to two highly regarded central bankers, Zhou Xiaochuan, former governor of the People’s Bank of China, and Zeti Akhtar Aziz, former governor of Bank Negara Malaysia.
They have put their focus on the people most affected by their actions and decisions. The overall impact had been on the real economy and they have worked hard to keep faith with their countrymen.
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Issue: 154
The Excellence in Retail Financial Services Awards 2018
This year, we have developed a methodology to track, evaluate and rank financial institutions on the journey to transform themselves into highly competitive digital players. It assesses the preparedness of institutions to compete and win in the digital world. We have found that digital finance institutions possess diverse business and operating models, ranging from pure online/mobile only players to online-offline hybrids to collaborations with small agent networks to specialised units within more conventional banks.
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Issue: 153
The web is under threat!
In this special edition, we feature Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, who writes about the threat that the web is facing and the future of the internet and technology. Berners-Lee is the keynote speaker at The Future of Finance Summit 2018 from 23rd to 25th May in Beijing, China, where he discusses key trends that will impact businesses that operate on the web, including financial institutions, as well as the implications of new data privacy regulations such as Europe's General Data Protection Regulation to the rest of the world.
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Issue: 152
The inevitable rise of the fiat cryptocurrency.
Despite concerns over the unbridled speculation that has inflated the value of cryptocurrencies and initial coin offerings, many governments have embarked on cryptocurrency initiatives that may render them legal tender in the not too distant future. Meanwhile, the march away from cash and cheques continues at an unrelenting pace. And we have a lot to thank the technology disruptors such as Safaricom (MPesa), Alibaba and Tencent for. From a practical perspective, they have finally broken the barrier to access cashless payments for literally billions of people in the underdeveloped and developing economies, long neglected by the incumbent financial services industry.
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Issue: 151
The Asia Pacific Banking Industry Outlook 2018
How will the industry fare as global and regional economic conditions improve? How long will it last? What key risks and challenges lie ahead?
Overall, global macro-conditions are generally positive and we are seeing quite an unprecedented phase of synchronised growth across the major continents. So favourable are conditions that some economists are
characterising them as “Goldilocks” – just right. Just as in the popular bedtime story, there is a moral and sinister side to it. The cosy conditions do not last long before the “bears” return. With the confluence of positive factors will markets be lulled into a state of “excessive exuberance” that numbs the dangers of the current pace of asset appreciation and accumulation of financial leverage, or should this instead be a time to look out for the returning bears?
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Issue: 150A
2017/18 Asia Pacific Leaders in Banking Technology Directory and Handbook
New technologies and business operating models continue to transform the banking space in Asia Pacific, driving players to focus more on innovation and design in order to improve operational efficiency and customer experience. In this 2017/18 edition of the Asia Pacific Leaders in Banking Technology Directory and Handbook, we are pleased to update this comprehensive guide to leading practitioners who are shaping their organisations and businesses on the regional and global fronts.
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Issue: 150
Are cryptocurrencies on the path to becoming mainstream?
Cryptocurrencies, in particular bitcoin, have been hogging media headlines recently. In the US, the first futures contracts for bitcoin started trading on the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) on 11 December 2017, one of two venues that the US Commodity and Futures Trading Commission had approved to do so on 1 December 2017. The other is the venerable Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) which started a week later.
No doubt there will be close attention paid to how bitcoin will perform in its first few days of futures trading. But on a wider perspective, will this bring cryptocurrencies into the mainstream? Is the CFTC approval a stamp of legitimacy for cryptocurrencies?
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Issue: 149A
Asia Pacific Leaders in Financial Institutions and Transaction Banking Directory 2017/18
New players and technologies continue to drive change in the transaction banking space in Asia Pacific, causing incumbent banks to focus more on improving customer experience and reviewing existing business models. In this 2017/18 edition of the Asia Pacific Leaders in Financial Institutions and Transaction Banking Directory, we are pleased to update this comprehensive guide to leading institutions and practitioners in the region, who are shaping their businesses on the regional and global fronts.
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Issue: 149
The Asian Banker 500 2017-2018 Edition
The Asian Banker 500 is the financial services industry's most comprehensive annual evaluation of the strength, quality and sustainability of the balance sheets of banks in Asia Pacific. Despite the strength of their balance sheets, banks in the region continue to face massive challenges in growing profits, a conundrum created by modern capital rules. In this issue, we also speak to Renu Satti, CEO of Paytm Payments Bank, a new generation bank in India that espouses value creation by focusing on solving problems that the customer faces and designing products and services with “extreme customer focus”.
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Issue: 148
The Future Faces of Finance?
In this issue, we profile the winners of The Asian Banker Leadership Achievement Awards, a programme that we run once every three years, as well as the first Innovation Leadership awards. We turn our attention to the new breed of young leaders who are navigating the less chartered waters of financial inclusion through technology and the power of the network in the new digital economy. This issue also includes proceeding reports from The Future of Finance Summit 2017.
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Issue: 147
The Excellence in Retail Financial Services Awards 2017
This year's Excellence in Retail Financial Services Awards programme marks the start of the transition that the industry is making from the traditional business and operating model to a digital and network-enabled customer centric proposition and documents how emerging best practice and performance in this new evolving landscape will need to be re-defined and measured
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Issue: 146
Blockchain - Moving from hype to reality
In this issue, dedicated to the Future of Finance Summit, we cast our eyes over some of the key transformative topics that are shaping the industry’s prospects.
We start with an update on blockchain or distributed ledger technology, followed by interviews with Vladislav Solodkiy, founder and managing partner of Life.SREDA, a
leading venture capital firm with a remarkable portfolio comprising challenger banks such as Moven, Simple and Fidor; former US congressman Barney Frank, the joint architect
of the Dodd-Frank Act, on his views on the prospective wave of deregulation that is sweeping through the banking industry in the US. And finally, we speak with the founders of two leading online marketplace lending institutions, Soul Htite of China-based Dianrong.com and Ron Suber of US-based Prosper Marketplace.
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Issue: 145
How robots are changing the face of banking
In this issue, we cast our eyes on one of the technologies that will transform the face of banking: artificial intelligence and robotics. Enabled by artificial intelligence and machine learning, robots are potential game changers that can bring unique operational efficiencies to the financial services industry. See how the industry is witnessing an exponential growth in the use of robots that is rapidly moving beyond ‘early adoption’ to maturity in scale.
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Issue: 144
The Asia Pacific Banking Industry Outlook 2017
As Trump casts his long shadow over global trade, will his brazen
style bring the world into a deeper economic quagmire?
The outlook for the banking industry in Asia Pacific will continue to be challenging, with conditions
deteriorating from a year ago, exacerbated by increasing uncertainties over the global geopolitical landscape and the prospect of worsening trade relations between the world’s leading nations as a consequence of the election of the new US president Donald Trump.
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Issue: 143
RMB: A Bumpy road ahead
In this issue, we analyse the implications of RMB joining SDR and its effect on offshore renminbi centres around the world. We have also included our annual Global Offshore RMB Assets Ranking where we evaluate leading financial institutions and RMB-dominated businesses outside of China. The focus on International Financial Reporting Standards 9 (IFRS 9) points out the challenges that banks face to meet the January 2018 deadline and their approach in integrating risk and finance models to enable its successful adoption. We also look at how transaction banks are reviewing their value propositions in view of the difficult financial conditions that are disrupting their businesses.
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Issue: 142
The Asian Banker 500 2016-2017 Edition
The Asian Banker 500 rankings continue to evolve as the financial services industry's most comprehensive annual evaluation of the strength, quality and sustainability of the balance sheets of banks in the Asia Pacific. This year’s rankings include the biggest and strongest 100 banks in the Middle East and Africa.
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Issue: 141
The search for leadership in challenging times
In this issue, we profile the winners of The Asian Banker Leadership Achievement Awards, a programme that we run once every three years. We turn our attention to leaders who not only run their individual banks exceptionally well but have made a real change to the countries they operate in. They have fought hard to support businesses that are close to the heart of their customers, building "flow business" as they follow customers'
expansion across the region, diversifying their revenue sources as well as building new digital banking platforms. The overall impact has been on the real economy and they have worked hard to keep faith with their customer base. We also have a special report on the recently held annual Asian Banker Summit during which we explored the latest transformational issues that are shaping the future of finance, why and how the industry is looking at "Reinventing the banking model" and much more.
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Issue: 140
The Excellence in Retail Financial Services Awards 2016
This year's Excellence in Retail Financial Services Awards programme focuses on the deep transformation occurring in the industry from digitisation and financial technology (fintech) disruption. Explore how leading retail banks are responding to the evolving landscape.
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Issue: 139
The race to commercialisation
The attention that blockchain and distributed ledger technology has attracted from the global financial services industry has grown exponentially in recent times. As with all new and emerging technologies, there will be periods of development, prototyping, launches and failures before it matures and achieves full commercial implementation. Meanwhile, there will be losers and winners amongst those who will join the quest to make it a commercial reality. In this issue, we showcase 100 of the leading blockchain use cases and initiatives from around the world. We also feature an interview with US congressman Barney Frank, former chairman of the House Financial Services Committee on his views on the evolution of bank regulation and new order that is emerging in the banking and financial services world.
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Issue: 138
The Asia Pacific Banking Industry Outlook 2016
Will China have a hard landing?
As China’s GDP ground to its slowest pace in 25 years, there are genuine concerns about its impact on the region’s
economies and financial markets. How will slower growth and the possibility of worsening corporate debt impact regional markets?
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Issue: 137B
A dynamic region in transition
The banking and financial services industry in the Middle East and Africa is being transformed by the growing trade and business flows between West and East as well as rising cross-border commerce.
As countries in the region transition from emerging to more developed markets, there will be new opportunities for financial institutions to grow into regional and international leaders.
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Issue: 137A
RMB: The road gets steeper
It is clear that China's goal of becoming the world's largest economy by 2020 and the internationalisation of the RMB are two initiatives that are symbiotic in nature. With the recent IMF decision to include the currency in the SDR currency basket, what does the future hold for the RMB?
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Issue: 137
Cyber Crime: Mounting battle against the darknet
Today’s risk and compliance professionals are operating amid an evolving regulatory backdrop and dynamic threat landscape that require strengthened systems of internal control and oversight. While resources are being deployed to deter corporate misconduct, corruption, money laundering, terrorism financing, fraud and cyber-attacks, banks and corporates continue to fall behind in ensuring that their institutions have a holistic 360 degree view on financial crime.
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Issue: 136
The Asian Banker 500 (2015-2016 Edition)
The Asian Banker 500 ranking continues to evolve as the financial services industry's most comprehensive annual evaluation of the strength, quality and sustainability of the balance sheets of banks in the Asia Pacific. This year we have also included the ranking of the biggest and strongest 100 banks in the Middle East and Africa.
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Issue: 135
An unbroken
track record
In this issue, we profile the winners of Asian Banker Leadership Achievement Awards, people who run their banks exceptionally well and make a real change to the countries that they are operating in. We recognise the founding chairman of Malaysia’s Public Bank, Teh Hong Piow with the William “Bill” Seidman Lifetime Achievement award. The CEO of Thailand’s TMB Bank, Boontuck Wungchareon with the Best CEO of the Year and TMB Bank with the Best Managed Bank awards. And Joseph Huang, president of Taiwan’s E.SUN Bank and Amit Sethi, CIO of India’s Axis Bank, are Transaction Banker and CIO of the Year respectively.
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Issue: 134A
What makes the best retail bank?
From this year’s Excellence in Retail Financial Services Awards programme, we have identified the top bank in each country that exemplified excellence and outstanding achievements in their retail banking businesses. These banks engender visionary leadership, long-term forward-looking strategy and excellent execution capabilities.
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Issue: 134
The Excellence in Retail Financial Services Awards 2015
This year’s Excellence in Retail Financial Services Awards programme has grown in coverage. The scope and scale of our coverage of the retail banking industry in the Middle East and Africa has evolved to such an extent that the award programme is attaining a truly global scale.
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Issue: 133
What is driving the future of supply chains?
In this Asian Banker Summit edition that looks at “Retaking the Future of Finance”, we look at the role that regulators and governments play in securing the stability of the financial system post global financial crisis, as well as the future of the supply chain, an important driver of economic growth in Asia.
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Issue: 132
The Asia Pacific Banking Industry Outlook 2015
The Banking Industry Outlook 2015 shows that regional banks are shoring up their ability to diversify funding sources while mitigating potential liquidity mismatch for domestic and foreign currency liabilities as they build up their liquidity buffers.
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Issue: 131A
The best in Korea Retail Financial Services
This celebratory edition recognises the most important developments in the Korea financial services industry today. It showcases banks who have emerged with best practices and documents case studies on them that can become benchmarks for future decision-makers to draw upon. The programme is an annual recognition of the best banks in Korea across product lines and infrastructure capabilities.
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Issue: 131
Taking a tougher stance on financial crime
Financial crime is a hotbed topic covering a wide scope, with impact on multiple levels. They often result not only in tangible financial loss to financial institutions but deeper reputation damage. Banks in the Asia Pacific region have to take a more holistic approach to developing safeguards.
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Issue: 130
The Asian Banker 500
The Bank Watch List was introduced in last year’s Asian Banker 500 ranking to highlight the risks that some of the region’s fast-growing banks, especially those in China, pose to the financial system given a potential downturn in the credit cycle. In the last 12 months, China’s slowing economy and growing credit bubble have combined to bring the problem to the fore.
Find out more in this year's issue of AB500.
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Issue: 129
Chasing the digital dollar
Banks that have already leapt on the digital bandwagon finding out that the competition is intense, from both other banks and even non-banks with the latter turning out to be incredibly innovative. How can traditional FIs break out and ride this wave?
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Issue: 128
Who will our future leaders be?
In conjunction with our Leadership Achievement Awards Edition and the presentation of The Asian Banker Promising Young Banker Award for the Asia Pacific Region to Sandhya Devanathan (Managing Director & Head of Credit Cards and Unsecured Loans – Standard Chartered Bank Singapore), this special issue takes a look at the issue of leadership and how women are faring in this role.
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Issue: 127A
What makes the best retail bank?
In this year’s Excellence in Retail Financial Services Awards programme, we identified the top bank in each country that performed with distinction to achieve exceptional success in their retail banking businesses. This special issue profiles eight outstanding examples of this year’s best retail banks, which are becoming more efficient and integrated in their operations, processes, technology and people management.
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Issue: 127
The Excellence in Retail Financial Services
Awards 2014
This special edition delivers detailed reports from the Excellence programme including proceedings from the Heads of Retail Financial Services meeting and the FutureBank Innovation Tour held in conjunction with the award ceremony which took place in Sydney, Australia. Details of the Excellence programme include the evaluation criteria and scorecards, and profiles of the winning organisations which can be used as benchmarks and best practices to track and reflect excellence in the retail financial services industry.
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Issue: 126
Wiring up regional financial markets
With cross-border integration promising a bigger marketplace for Southeast Asian companies, greater scale and proficiency is needed to compete on a global scale. Asean needs to be a more open marketplace and take to heart lessons that can be learnt from the EU, in order to compete with fast-growing economies like India and China. This issue explores the opportunities and challenges that accompany financial integration.
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Issue: 125
Domestic players take bigger share of wealth management
Local banks are getting a bigger slice of the wealth management business in the region. The robust pace and depth of economic development in Asia has led to the emergence of a new breed of wealthy and high net worth clients. While the fee potential from the wealth management business is attractive, it is also a notoriously expensive business to run. Banks will have to completely rethink their operating models.
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Issue: 124
The Asia Pacific Banking Industry Outlook 2014
Asia Pacific economies have undergone a transformation centred on a reorientation towards China and its increasingly domestic consumption-led growth. But fault lines in China’s burgeoning economy are starting to show.
In 2014, the Asia Pacific banking industry will be dominated by the sustainability of G3 recovery as well as the concrete outcomes from financial and economic reforms taking place in the region even as growth looks set to moderate.
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Issue: 123A
Korean banks push the technology envelope
This edition profiles the winners of the inaugural Technology Implementation Awards Korea. It showcases leading technology innovations and important developments in the Korea financial services industry. The programme is an annual recognition of the best technology implementation projects and case-studies in the country.
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Issue: 123
Taking a higher profile at the board table
M&A deals in the Asia Pacific region may seem to be in a decline since 2011, yet what lies beneath is that the deals are not being closed as quickly as before partly due to limits national regulators are putting on the ownership of domestic banks by foreign banks. Beyond bank mergers, this issue also looks at the evolving role of the chief risk officer in influencing strategic business decisions and embedding a holistic risk culture in the organisation, and how banks in Asia are transforming their risk management practices to face a more demanding and intrusive regulatory environment.
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Issue: 122
The Asian Banker 500 (2013-2014 Edition)
Now into its 12th iteration, The Asian Banker 500 ranking continues to evolve as the financial services industry’s most comprehensive annual evaluation of the strength, quality and sustainability of the balance sheets of banks in the Asia Pacific. This year’s rankings again see Hong Kong banks coming out strong, with Singapore and Malaysian banks such as OCBC, UOB and Maybank also achieving big leaps forward.
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Issue: 121
The next frontier in payments
Today, the payments world stands at the cusp of another technological breakthrough with the advent ever-smarter mobile technology. These will have an exponential effect on the way we connect, interact and do our banking. In this issue, we look at initiatives around Asia Pacific that are positioning mobile-based payments as the next frontier that will make cashless peer-to-peer transactions a reality.
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Issue: 120
Delivering on their word
Many CEOs today are faced with the challenge of sustaining growth while at the same time having to deal with increasingly intrusive regulations, an unrelenting pace of competition as well as mounting pressure on margins.
Don't miss this issue in order to find out how our recent survey of CEO remuneration shows that the best performing banks in the region are run by CEOs whose remuneration is largely based on the ability to meet the performance targets set by their boards.
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Issue: 119A
Celebrating the Best Retail Banks in 2013/2014
In this year’s Excellence in Retail Financial Services Awards programme, we identified the top bank in each country that performed with distinction to achieve exceptional success in their retail banking businesses. This special issue profiles six outstanding examples of this year’s best retail banks, which are becoming more efficient and integrated in their operations, processes, technology and people management.
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Issue: 119
The Excellence in Retail Financial Services Awards 2013
This issue is dedicated to showcasing the outcome of the Excellence programme, including proceedings from the Heads of Retail Financial Services meeting and Excellence conference held in conjunction with the award ceremony which took place in Seoul, South Korea from March 20th to 22nd 2013. Read to find complete details of the award programme, including the evaluation criteria and scorecards, profiles of winning organisations and best practices that aim to track and reflect excellence in the retail financial services industry.
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Issue: 118
Towards Regional Financial Integration
Intra-regional trade and business flows have been growing at a tremendous pace in Asia, yet this has not made the region immune to the effects of global economic and regulatory changes. Asian banks in particular will have to confront new capital and liquidity standards that will increase the cost of doing business. These are some of the challenges that senior bank executives will be confronting at the Asian Banker Summit 2013 (the Summit) held in Jakarta, Indonesia from April 23 to 25, which focuses on the prospects of increased regional integration
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Issue: 117
Redefining the management of wealth
Asian Banker Research found more than one-third of IT projects carried out were aimed at improving customer experience, as banks begin to realise that real differentiation in the marketplace is driven by how well customers feel they are treated. The triumvirate of competition, regulation and customer expectation is moving them to adopt more customer-centric operating models -
and technology and innovation become key to improving customer experience.
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Issue: 116
The Asia Pacific Banking Industry Outlook 2013
Despite 2012 being rocky for the global financial services industry, Asia Pacific banks weathered the storm well, chalking up impressive growth. Can they sustain the momentum in 2013? In this issue, Manu Bhaskaran, one of Asia's most respected economists shares his perspective on the challenges facing the region today as we turn the spotlight on key themes that provide opportunities for growth as well as highlight areas that continue to be sources of risks and challenges.
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Issue: 115
Off the mark
In a recent survey conducted by The Asian Banker, close to 70% of respondents indicated less than desirable levels of integration between risk and finance functions in their organisations. Despite regulatory pressure, many banks have not embraced the mind-set change required for a more holistic risk management framework. The Risk Management Special Report looks at the best practices and achievements of five banks and delves into the challenges they faced in implementing their risk management solutions as well as the benefits they were able to gain as a result.
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Issue: 114
Asset growth doubles
In this issue, we look at the Top 500 largest and strongest banks in the Asia Pacific region, examining the unique and best-in-class approach to determining bank strength and profile banking systems across 14 countries.
The strength of Asian banks, including a few of the smaller banks in the Top 20, continues to be underpinned by solid lines of business growth and profitability, strong financial bases and sound risk management practices, as reflected in their officially published financial numbers.
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