Standard Chartered Bank, Greater China and North Asia recognised for growing the business in its most important region as it wins Best Regional Retail Business in Asia Pacific

• Standard Chartered Bank witnessed strong growth in the region supported by a slew of digital wealth and origination initiatives
• Digitalisation of wealth is a big focus
• Digital origination
• Chatbot to enhance customer experience

Dubai, March 21st, 2019 - Standard Chartered Bank, Greater China and North Asia was awarded Best Regional Retail Business in Asia Pacific at The Asian Banker International Excellence in Retail Financial Awards 2019. The awards ceremony was held in conjunction withThe Excellence in Retail Financial Services Convention 2019at Conrad Dubai, U.A.E on March 21st 2019.

Standing from left: David Gyori,Member, Excellence in Retail Financial Services Advisory Council; Wilson Chia, Member, Excellence in Retail Financial Services Advisory Council; Representative from Standard Chartered Bank; VarunSabhlok, Member, Excellence in Retail Financial Services Advisory Council

The bank witnessed strong growth in the region supported by a slew of digital wealth and origination initiatives

Greater China and North Asia is the most important region for Standard Chartered Bank (SCB) in terms of revenue and profit generation. In 2018. its revenue in the region accounts for almost 57% of its total global revenue and 69% of profits. Its revenue grew by 11% while profits before tax grew by almost 22%, more than any other regions in the world. Greater China and North Asia saw the highest increase in customer accounts by 8% while ASEAN grew by 6%, and Europe and Middle East fell behind for the same period.

Digitisation of wealth is a big focus 

The bank launched a mobile foreign exchange (FX) trading and order platform, the first time in all countries in the region. This allows consumers to use their mobile app to trade FX like they would trade equities, they can set alerts on pricing, etc. This is in partnership with Thomson Reuters which provides all the content, including from SCB and news feeds. SCB is the liquidity provider settling the transaction. 

Additionally, it launched a mobile platform for funds in China, and refreshed its service in Taiwan in January 2019 and will launch one in Hong Kong later. The app screens product for suitability and provides recommendation, that also includes structured products with multiple liquidity providers. In Korea, it implemented an exchange traded fund (ETF) platform.

Digital origination

The bank is also driving more digital product origination in the Greater China and North Asia region. The strongest products are cards and personal loans with above 40% origination through digital channels. In Hong Kong, credit card origination is above 50%, CASA above 30% and more than 35% of all new to bank customers are digitally onboarded. Overall, Korea is the most advanced with more than 28% of all products originated digitally.
It is also working with third platforms to originate loans in the region. WeLend originates for SCB in Hong Kong.  In China it has a project with Alibaba on SME loans and it will use data from Alibaba to use underwriting and then provides the funds. In Korea, it offers microloans on an e-commerce platform.

Chatbot to enhance customers experience

Putting the strategy of ‘Human Banking’ at the heart of its retail operations, SCB is also leveraging artificial intelligence and augmented it with natural-learning understanding to launch Stacy, its 24*7 chatbot, trained and equipped to process over 400 banking related queries. Its Mobile CASA service onboards a customer via eKYC, reducing the time to open a bank account from an hour to eight minutes. Embedding the philosophy of “Think Client” culture, the bank launched Human Service program across its branch networks to sharpen relationship management skills of frontline staff. 

The International Excellence in Retail Financial Services programme is one of the most rigorous, prestigious and transparent awards programme for consumer financial services in the world. Covering all of the Asia Pacific, the Middle East and West Africa, the programme was instituted in in 2001 to recognise the pursuit of excellence amongst retail financial institutions.The programme evaluates more than 300 banks and non-bank retail financial services players in more than 42 countries, via a rigorous audit-based approach.

About The Asian Banker International

The Asian Banker is the region’s most authoritative provider of strategic business intelligence to the financial services community. The Singapore-based company has offices in Singapore, Malaysia, Manila, Hong Kong, Beijing, and Dubai, as well as representatives in London, New York, and San Francisco. It has a business model that revolves around three core business lines: publications, research services and forums. The company’s website is www.theasianbanker.com

You may visit the Excellence in Retail Financial Services Awards gallery at https://www.facebook.com/pg/TheAsianBanker/photos/?tab=album&album_id=10157080239284804

For further information on the collaterals for winning banks, please contact:

Mr. Alfred Labicassi
The Asian Banker
Email: alabicassi@theasianbanker.com