(Asia) – Standard Chartered has held its ranking as Asia’s best rated transaction banker to the region’s top corporates even though rival HSBC holds the biggest market share and JPMorgan is rated the region’s best Cash Management Bank, according to latest Asian banking research from industry analysts East and Partners.
East has just
completed its third six-monthly survey of Asia’s Top 900 companies after
fieldwork executed in December 2002 and January 2003. East interviewed 846
chief financial officers or equivalents at Asia’s top companies (as defined
by revenue) spread evenly through nine countries: China, Hong Kong,
Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and
Thailand.
The report –
“Asian Corporate Transaction & e-Banking Markets” – looks at
customer satisfaction and demand levels in 27 service and product
categories, and produces key information on market share among the banks.
The survey
finds that customers are demanding better levels of service from their
banks, but reveals substantial variations in performance.
Importantly,
the survey also finds that banks’ initiatives in developing indirect
channels such as electronic delivery are not highly valued by clients and at
the same time are falling behind in key “face-to-face’ relationship
areas where clients want better performance.
The survey
findings include:
-
HSBC
is the current principal transaction banker to 20.8 percent of Asia’s
Top 900 corporates, slipping marginally from 21.5 percent in July 2002.
Standard Chartered is second, with 14.9 percent (up from 14.2 percent in
July) and Citibank is third with 13.2 percent (against 12.6 percent in
July). They are followed by DBS, OCBC, Bank of America, JPMorgan, OUB,
Bank of China, UOB, Hang Seng, Deutsche, Chung Hwa, ABN Amro and BNP
Paribas. -
Standard
Chartered has again been rated “Best Stand Out Transaction
Bank”, with 20.1 percent of respondents ranking it as number one,
against 21.2 percent in July 2002. HSBC was ranked second, improving its
performance to 15.5 percent over the previous six months, followed by
JPMorgan, Citibank, Bank of America, OCBC, DBS and the Bank of China. -
HSBC
has been ranked “Best Stand Out Corporate e-Banker” by 20.8
percent of respondents, down from 23.9 percent in the previous survey
followed by Standard Chartered. -
JPMorgan
was ranked “Best Stand Out Cash Management Bank” by 18.8
percent, ahead of Citibank, BNP Paribas and Standard Chartered. -
The
three most important factors for Asian corporates in their transaction
banking are Quality of Transaction Execution, Quality of Overall Service
Delivery, and Response Times on Queries. -
The
three least important factors are Usefulness of Transaction Bank’s
Website, Credit Rating of the Transaction Bank, and the Reputation/Name
of the Transaction Bank. -
The three
worst performing areas in terms of customer satisfaction were Quality of
Contact with Senior Bank Management, Frequency of Contact with Senior
Bank Management, and Effectiveness of Problem Resolution.
Commenting on
the report, East and Partners’ principal analyst Paul Dowling said:
“Corporates’ responses on which service attributes are important are an
indictment of how many of Asia’s banks behave in relationship
development.”
“Web
based tools and techniques that are being used by banks to grow and extend
their existing corporate transaction relationships, and that are working so
effectively in other geographies, are not highly regarded by corporates in
Asia, irrespective of how well or poorly they are being executed.”
“The
report shows that corporates in Asia want direct, personalised service
delivery and relationship management as well as the efficiency of electronic
delivery, but the banks are only focussing on one side of the equation,
which is the more indirect model of customer engagement. They do this at
their peril.”
“Importantly,
this is being directly reflected in accelerating account churn, with several
players having to run very hard in new account acquisition just to stand
still.”