East & Partners

What’s important to Asian Corporates in Transaction Banking?

(Asia) - The goal posts continue to get higher as corporate Asia lifts its expectations in transaction banking and whilst the banks are getting better, the gap's growing, especially in e-banking.

In the 2nd about-to-be-released review of bank market share, product uplift and bank performance in the region's transaction and e-banking markets, industry analysts East & Partners note that not one of the 27 relationship and service performance factors covered in its regular 6-monthly analysis of 9 country markets have been rated at less than average in importance to CFOs. Every one of these service and relationship factors has been scored as important to the corporate. The 3 service factors of most importance in their transaction banking relationships to the CFO are:

Response times on queries (1st)
Quality of transaction execution
Electronic service delivery and Quality of overall service delivery (joint)

By contrast the 3 least important factors of the 27 covered in the analysis to corporates in their transaction banking relationships continue to be the same as the inaugural results from this research 6 months ago:

Usefulness of Bank's website (27th)
Credit rating of the transaction bank
Reputation / name of the transaction bank

This remains a damning comment on the value to corporate customers of much bank behaviour in "relationship" development and banking. The website based tools and techniques that are being used by banks to grow and extend their existing transaction relationships, and that work so effectively in other geographies, are not highly regarded by their corporate customers in Asia, irrespective of how well or poorly they are executing.

Corporates in the region are demanding direct, personalised service delivery and relationship management and transaction bankers insist on moving toward more indirect models of customer engagement at their peril.

*Importance Ratings of Service Attributes*

	Average Rating Reported 1 - - 2 - 3 - 4 - - 5 (high) (low)

	July 2001

Transaction Processing Speed	1.31
Quality of Transaction Execution	1.12
Settlement Performance	1.15
Quality of Support Documentation	1.77
Professional Competence	1.40
Electronic Service Delivery	1.14
Response Times on Queries	1.10
Effectiveness of Problem Resolution	1.36
Understanding of Customer's Business	1.15
Value for Money	1.40
Innovation	1.88
Competitiveness	1.19
Knowledge of Customer's Industry	1.26
Reputation / Name of Bank	2.02
Credit Rating of Bank	2.33
General Professionalism	1.53
Being Proactive in Dealings with Customer	1.60
Social Interaction	1.87
Usefulness of Transaction Bank's Website	2.35
Interest in Customer's Business	1.67
Transaction Bank's Account Officer	1.80
Frequency of Contact with Bank's Senior Management	1.58
Quality of Contact with Bank's Senior Management	1.30
Transaction Bank's Account Management Practices	1.21
Quality of Overall Advice from Transaction Bank	1.27
Quality of Overall Service Delivery from Transaction Bank	1.14
Quality of Electronic Banking Help Desk	1.16

East & Partners Pty Ltd
Asia Corporate Transaction Banking Markets Service, July 2002
For further information on this research program - sales@eastandpartners.com