Corporate Banking in Asia is Heating Up

The press seems to focus a lot of its coverage on competition for retail banking business in Asia, but from where I sit it looks as though the corporate banking side is at least as hot, if not more so. One reason is that retail products and services are already fairly well developed in the region, leaving much of the action on the retail side to the marketing and branding of increasingly commoditized offerings. Corporate banking services, on the other hand, are still developing. There is a lot of room for improvement in the way banks in Asia are packaging and delivering their corporate banking services. This is particularly true for transaction banking services, including cash management, treasury, trade finance and supply chain management products and services. The large global banks have been investing heavily in developing comprehensive suites of services, often on a worldwide basis; many banks in Asia are now starting to see the value in developing a full range of transaction banking services for their corporate customers. I was recently invited to speak at an event in Hanoi, Vietnam for Asian banks organized by Citi, where this trend was readily observable. The venue was packed with managers from banks throughout Asia, large and small. They came to see what Citi had to offer in the way of web-based delivery, global payments solutions, trade finance and supply chain finance services, etc etc, and to think about how to offer these services to their corporate clients. Many banks in the region are likely to use the white labeled services of global banks such as Citi, ABN AMRO or HSBC, to name a few. Banks will be faced with choices in what mix of services, both outsourced and home grown, to offer in their particular market. I was struck by the number of banks I spoke with at the conference that were feeling challenged in developing their strategies for corporate banking services. Celent has followed developments and strategies in transaction banking for some years, and is now covering the market from the corporate side as well with our new corporate treasury research service. I look forward to working more closely with banks in Asia as they consider their options in this rapidly developing area.