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AsiAn BAnking & FinAnce MAgAzine gives recognition to the outstanding bank performers for 2011behavioral economics: the new competitive edge

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ASIAN BANKING AND FINANCE | SEPTEMBER 2011 3

Tim [email protected]

This year’s Asian Banking and Finance Retail Banking Awards were the most contested in the history of the awards, and the winners can be proud of their achievements. The Awards were first organized in 2007, and have since grown to reflect the best achievements of our industry.

I am very pleased to mention that this year’s awards saw a record number of entries, each one bringing innovation to the next level and

therefore providing exceptional satisfaction to their customers. Asian banks are undoubtedly weathering the constantly changing banking landscape while delivering outstanding results.

ABF recognizes these notable efforts of the Asian banks. More than 150 bankers and financial executives were present to witness this milestone evening in Singapore in July.

Many thanks, of course, to our partners from PwC, KPMG, Deloitte Consulting, and Ernst & Young Advisory for meticulously screening the nominations and giving the final verdict on who deserves to win each category.

In this issue you will find out how the winning banks’ strategy bested their competitors and how their innovative campaigns and initiatives worked for them to deserve their respective awards. We dedicate this issue to all the outstanding bank performers from this year’s Asian Banking and Finance Retail Banking Awards.

Congratulations to all the winners! We hope to see you all again next year.

All the best

FROM THE EDITOR

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4 ASIAN BANKING AND FINANCE | SEPTEMBER 2011

CONTENTS

ABf RETAIL BAnkIng AwARDS 2011the AwArds night

BEhAvIORAL EcOnOMIcS:ThE nEw cOMPETITIvE EDgE14 ABf RETAIL BAnkIng AwARDS 2011

winners’ proFiles16

10

Published Bi-monthly on the Second week of the Month by Charlton Media Group Pte Ltd, 15 B stanley street, singapore - 068734

For the latest banking news from Asia visit the website

www.asianbankingandfinance.net

FEATURE EVENT

SPECIAL FEATURE REGULAR

14 Behavioral economics: the new competitive edge The key to financial success is for leaders to work with human nature rather than against it.

10 2011 Asian Banking & Finance Retail Banking Awards Night The top bank performers recognized in the 2011 Asian Banking and Finance Retail Banking Awards.

16 ABA Bank: A trusted brand with a loyal client base

18 New core banking system: Key to success for BDI

20 Soaring and aiming high

22 Brand makeover: Federal Bank of Lebanon s.a.l.

24 PrimeCredit Brothers: Leading by example

26 Embracing innovation

28 tECHCOMBANK: Roaring success

30 OCBC: Banking through sickness and health

31 OCBC Securities: Smarter trading on the go

06 Most Read

34 Last Word

Asian Banking & Finance Magazine gives recognition to the outstanding bank performers for 2011


Expansion and contraction in AsiaMOST REaD

StanChart to close 43 Korea branches amidst strike Nearly half of the lend-ers’ 6,500 employees in Korea walked out to protest against a pro-posed incentive-based compensation system.

Standard Chartered Plc’s Korean unit said it will temporarily close about a tenth of its branches as it has become the worst labor dispute involving a for-eign bank in the nation in more than five years.

RETaIl baNkINg

RHB still seeks for merger partnerRHB maintains interest in M&A even after May-bank and CIMB dropped the plan.

RHB Capital, Malay-sia’s fifth largest lender, remains open to merger opportunities if the price is right, its chief said after two larger rivals scrapped plans to ac-quire it in a bid to create Southeast Asia’s biggest bank.

RETaIl baNkINg

Commonwealth Bank keen on expanding in IndonesiaThe lender resorts to overseas income to compensate lethargic lending in Australia.

The Commonwealth Bank has signalled plans to nearly double the footprint across Indonesia over the next few years in an effort to find fresh sources

bRaNCH baNkINg

of growth outside Australia.

StanChart closes down as thousands walkout

Banco de Oro starts offering China UnionPay servicesGFG Group enables the lender to harness China unionPay transactions using its Cadencie plat-form.

Payment software and services company GFG Group announced the recent successful implementation of China unionPay (CuP) issuing and acquiring by Banco de Oro unibank Inc. (BDO) in the Philippines, utilising GFG’s Cadencie card management solu-tion.

CaRDS & PaYMENTS

Indonesia to expect more branches

Deutsche Bank Ko-rea appeals freeze order over stock manipulationThe South Korean branch of Deutsche Bank AG has appealed a Seoul court’s decision to freeze its assets over allega-tions that the company pocketed massive profits from illegal stock market trading late November.

The bank lodged the appeal in response to the Seoul Central District Court’s order to freeze 44.8 billion won or $42.3 million worth of deposits jointly held by the lender and Deutsche Securities Korea, its brokerage unit

TRaDE FINaNCE

INvESTMENT baNkINg

$3.6bnTemasek still keen on China despite $3.6bn shares sale China accounts for 20% of the Singapore state investor’s portfolio de-spite having sold shares in two Chinese banks.Singapore state investor Temasek Holdings said it remains bullish on China, even though it sold $3.6 billion worth of shares in two Chinese banks.

AgBank eyes 45% surge in first half profitDespite the fact that its lock-up period will begin expiring in July, none of the bank’s key investors in its Hong Kong shares have hinted of selling their stake. As such, Agricultural Bank of China, the coun-try’s No. 3 lender, expects first-half net profit to rise by more than 45%, helped by a widening net interest margin and growth in fee income.

SME Bank targets RM1.5 B worth of loan dispersalSME Bank aims to disburse RM1.5 billion in loans by year-end. The bank’s managing director, Datuk Mohd Radzif Mohd Yunus, said the bank gave out RM700 million in loans in the first half of this year in continuing efforts to assist small and medium enterprises.

RETaIl baNkINg

lENDINg & CREDIT

News from asianbankingandfinance.net

The best of asianbakingandfinance.net

BDO starts offering China UnionPay services

China’s phenomenal economic growth over the past three decades has at-tracted much attention worldwide. It

has become the second largest economy last year and is now on pace to catch US by 2030, according to World Bank’s chief economist.

Today, Chinese companies are embarking towards global activities and have become the world’s leading players in the market.

Huawei, the second-largest supplier of mo-bile telecommunications equipment world-wide, is one of the most successful Chinese companies today. In the self-service solutions industry meanwhile, GRGBanking tops the world’s ATM market. Established in 1999, GRGBanking has grown so much in the last decade. It is now the largest cash processing solution provider in China and ranks 6th in the global market.

Its revenue for 2010 amounted to a whop-ping $262.9 million. Last year, the company signed two contracts worth $93.17 million with the Bank of China. Moreover, the com-pany made a significant breakthrough in Eu-rope last year, winning a bid to deploy 1,250 H68N cash-recycling ATMs for Ziraat Bankasi, Turkey’s biggest bank.

In 2009, World Brand Lab ranked GRG Banking Equipment Co Ltd. as among the top 500 most valuable brands in China. GRG ranked 359th, valuing over RMB 2 billion (U.S. $29 million). It is the only company in the financial self-service industry to make the list.

Sprinting to catch upIn 1999, GRGBanking was established and was deemed a newcomer in the ATM indus-try. There was harsh competition in the market dominated by foreign companies like Diebold, NCR and Wincor Nixdorf.

Product quality was the key in order to win the trust of big state-owned banks in China. GRGBanking inherits its high quality standards from parent company Gougzhou Radio Group（GRG（which specializes in military communication. A year after its establishment, GRGBanking successfully passed ISO9001: 1994 quality system certification which was a leap towards a new stage of production management.

The reliability of the products combined with responsive service established the company’s reputation in the Chinese Banking industry. Contracts from leading banks in China started to come one after another. Therefore, GRG banking has grown rapidly amid severe competition. In 2006, GRG entered into the top 3 Chinese ATM market. In 2007, it was listed in China’s Stock Exchange Market. In 2008, GRGBanking became the largest ATM supplier in China and broke into the global maket’s top 10. It took less than 10 years for the company to grow into the No.1 ATM brand in China.

Today, GRGBanking’s ATM services have

“GRGBanking’s revenue for 2010 amounted to $262.9 million”

been widely adopted in China’s largest banks such as Agricultural Bank of China, Bank of Chi-na, China construction Bank, Bank of Commu-nication, Postal Savings Bank of China and so on. At present, GRGBanking is controlling over 22% ATM market share in China--the world ‘s second largest ATM market.

An emerging technology leaderChina has long been regarded as a latecomer in international technology because of its isola-tion during the socio-economist era of the 50s to 70s. However, this has changed.

China has heavily invested in R&D, with spending growing by 20% per year since 1999 to reach over US$100 billion a year. Having been a licensee of intellectual property rights for a long time, Chinese companies are now trying to create their own technologies and patents. GRGBanking, for example, has already applied more than 153 domestic and international pat-ents by June 2010.

Besides, GRGBanking unveiled the first Chi-nese ATM R&D Academy last November after more than one year of preparation. The GRG R&D Academy is recognized as a state level fi-nancial electronics technology center. It consists of the R&D Center Office, Institute of ATM, Institute of ATM security, Institute of General Research, Institute of Basic Research, Institute of AFC Research, Institute of Software Research and the Test Center.

In addition to these, the GRG R&D Academy has 1800 technicians and over 400 senior re-searchers. Moreover, the chief scientist of the ATM R&D Academy, Dai Ruwei is the most prestigious academician.

This has brought GRG’s current R&D capabil-ity to the top level, worldwide. It is now one of the few in the world that has its own IPR of cash processing mechanisms including cashout, cash-in and cash recycling modules.

“In terms of future, as I explained, cash processing industry is still undeveloped and has big potential, while GRG is pioneer and has good position in the field. I believe with our cur-rent business strategy, philosophy and working culture, we will have a very bright future,” Mark Yip, Managing Director of GRGBanking, said.

CONTACT

GRG Building

A rising dragon in the ATM industry

GRG BANKING EquIPMENT CO., lTD9 Kelin Road, Science City, luogang District, Guangzhou, ChinaTel: +86 020-82188010Website: www.GRGBanking.com

co-PUBLISHED

Juan David Morgan Jr., Enrique de Alba, Juan David Morgan G., Jorge Luis Reyes,Roberto Lewis Morgan and Eduardo Enrique Morgan III, partners of Morgan & Morgan.

At the center, Alexis Medina A., Executive Director of the Singapure o�ce.

The Morgan & Morgan Group hosted a cocktail in Singapore on April

13, 2011 at the Marina Mandarin Hotel, to commemorate its third year

of successful operations in the heart of Southeast Asia. The Singapore

o�ce was established in 2008 and o�ers corporate, maritime and

legal services, as part of Morgan & Morgan's global network in more

than 20 cities in Europe, America and Asia.

Dr. Juan David Morgan G., founding partner of The Morgan & Morgan

Group, addressed the distinguished guests, pointing out the many

similarities between Panama and Singapore, such as their strategic

geographical positions and their well-developed service oriented

economies. He closed by revealing the future plans the Morgan &

Morgan Group has for its Singapore o�ce, which include obtaining a

Trust Company License and incorporating the o�ce into Morgan &

Morgan's �duciary network services for asset protection, tax, estate

and �nancial planning.

Participating guests included important law �rms, banks, asset

management companies, trust companies, shipping agents as well as

ship owner’s representatives in Singapore. Ms. Patricia Nuñez Spiegel,

General Vice Consul of the Republic of Panama in Singapore, was also

present in this special event.

The Morgan & Morgan Group has more than 88 years of successful

experience. It has developed an extensive and e�cient operations

network in more than 20 cities in America, Asia and Europe, delivering

the highest quality of legal, �duciary and �nancial services under the

best international industry standards.

Morgan & Morgan Group celebrates its Third Anniversary in Singapore

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NBA KING FINANCEASIA

N


The region’s best banks were recognised at this year’s awards held in Singapore. More than 150 bankers from around Asia were on hand

to cheer on the winners at the region’s most prestig-ious retail banking awards.

Since initiating the Awards in 2007, Asian Bank-ing and Finance Magazine (ABF) has been recogniz-ing the best performances of various banking and finance institutions around Asia. This year, ABF focused on best-of-the-best practices in the retail banking sector.

The nominations were screened by the top part-ners of different firms in Asia. The judges included:

•Dominic Nixon, PwC•Egidio Zarrella, KPMG•Mohit Mehrotra, Deloitte Consulting, SEA•Liew Nam Soon, Ernst and Young Advisory LLPThe judges looked at the nominees’ strategy,

service or product based on what makes it differ-ent from others (innovation), how it benefits the market as a whole (effectiveness), and how flexible it is to changes and progressive opportunities (dy-namism).

Publisher Tim Charlton said: “This year saw a record number of entries and some excellent exam-ples of banks leading through innovation.”

ABF salutes all the winners for their outstanding performances in the respective categories. The win-ning banks are:

asian banking and finance retail banking awards 2011

The team from OCBC Bank

Martin Grimshaw & Ian Joshua of Deutsche Bank AG

Mr. Bandit Rojanavongse of Siam Commercial Bank

The team from OCBC Bank

Andi Tenri Gappa of PT Pan Indonesian Bank

Tim Charlton, Editor-in-Chief of Asian Banking & Finance Magazine

best self service initiative• GOlD: Citigroup Hong Kong• SilvEr: DBS Bank• BrOnzE: Asia United Bank

best direct marketing campaign in indonesia• PT Bank Mandiri

best direct marketing campaign in taiwan• Taishin Bank

philippine best bank website• rizal Commercial Banking Corporation

thailand best bank website• Siam Commercial Bank

hong kong best bank website• Citigroup Hong Kong

best security initiative• rHB Bank Berhad

best credit card initiative• GOlD: OCBC Bank• SilvEr: Citigroup Hong Kong

best branch initiative• GOlD: Citibank Singapore•SilvEr: Citigroup Hong Kong


Sharanjit Leyl of BBC News, Host for the evening

Wilfredo Rodriquez of Asia United Bank

Halil Ibrahim of TC Ziraat Bank receiving their award

Tiffany Ko of Taishin Bank

Tim Charlton with Jessie Tang of CIMB Berhad receiving the Gold award for Best Advertising Campaign

The team from PT Bank Danamon Tbk who won the Gold award for Best Core Banking System Initiative

Jacquelyn Tan & Ong Lay Choo of Citibank Singapore

Ng Kwang Liang of Public Bank Berhad Delegates enjoying the event

The team from PrimeCredit Limited The team from PT Bank Mandiri Tbk



asian banking and finance retail banking awards 2011

The team from Techcombank

Peter Ormandy & Robert Musgrove of Bendigo & Adelaide Bank

Emily Chow of PrimeCredit

The team from DBS Bank

Askhat Azhikhanov of ABA Bank receiving the Cambodia Retail Bank of the Year

Sulaiman Al Harthy of Bank Muscat

best advertising campaign• GOlD: CiMB Bank Berhad• SilvEr: DBS Bank• BrOnzE:Citibank Singapore

best corporate social responsibility program• GOlD: The Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Singapore• SilvEr: Maybank Singapore•BrOnzE: Bendigo and Adelaide Bank

best core banking system initiative• GOlD: Bank Danamon• SilvEr: Citigroup Hong Kong• BrOnzE: Asia United Bank

best environmental initiative• GOlD: The Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation limited Hong Kong• SilvEr: Deutsche Bank AG• BrOnzE: Philippine Business Bank

best environmental initiative – indonesia• PT Pan indonesia Tbk.

best online banking initiative in the philippines• Security Bankbest online banking initiative in hong kong• Citigroup Hong Kongbest online banking / securities in singapore• OCBC Securities

most innovative banking technology• TC ziraat Bank

best asean sme bank• OCBC Bank finance company of the yearhong kong finance company of the year• PrimeCredit limitedsingapore finance company of the year• Hong leong Financethailand finance company of the year• Siam Commercial Bank retail bank of the yearcambodia retail bank of the year• ABA Bank Cambodiamalaysia retail bank of the year• Public Bank Berhadphilippine retail bank of the year• rizal Commercial Banking Corporationsingapore retail bank of the year• DBS Bankthailand retail bank of the year• Standard Chartered Bank (Thai) Public Co. ltd.vietnam retail bank of the year• vietnam Technological and Commercial joint-stock Banktaiwan retail bank of the year• Taishin Bankoman retail bank of the year• BankMuscat best international bank of the year• Citigroup Hong Kong


Keith Chan of Philippine Business Bank receiving the award

Krisana Gallezo, Niyasuthin, & Ann Aquino of Asian Banking & Finance Magazine

Daniel Yu of Security Bank receiving the award

Goh Kong Aik of HSBC Singapore accepts the award

The team from RCBC Bank Chantarmanee Nunchaiya of Standard Chartered Thailand

Romina Binti Talib of RHB Bank Berhad receiving the award

Teresa Au of HSBC Hongkong with Tim Charlton

The team from Hong Leong Finance Limited

The team from Maybank Singapore The team from OCBC Securities



An emerging management discipline based on the prin-ciples of behavioral econom-

ics is helping banks make sense of the behavior of customers and employ-ees. For Larry Emond, Managing Part-

ner and Chief Marketing Officer of Gallup Consulting, whose role re-volves around counseling client com-panies on strategic issues, applied behavioral economics can provide business leaders with insights they otherwise might not have consid-ered.

“In today’s hypercompetitive global business environment, the secret to driving higher levels of growth and profitability lies in understanding the powerful role human nature plays in the marketplace and in the workplace,” says Emond.

Emond took time out to give ABF his take on the future of customer and employee engagement, and why he says applied behavioral economics plays an important role in the finan-cial growth of a bank.

Behavioral economics: The new competitive edge

ABF: How is Behavioral Econom-ics different from neoclassical eco-nomics?Larry: Neoclassical economics assumes that human beings are rational, making economic decisions based on logical rational data. Before having a decision, they evaluate all of the available evidence that is the benefits of a certain course of action against its costs. This has led to investment in appealing mainly to the rational side of customers and employees to engage them.

For the last twenty years, we in Gallup have been trying to under-stand why employees and custom-ers behave the way they do. What we have learned is that emotion plays a pivotal role in decision making.

Unlike neoclassical economics, be-havioral economics is based on the realization that human beings are not very rational.

ABF: What competitive edge does Behavioral Economics give to the banks?

Larry: Banks have been in the fore-front of measuring how custom-ers feel. But banks are not paying enough attention to the emotional relationship the customers have with the employees. Banks have to under-stand all the inherent contradictions, flaws and emotions that come with being human. Their performance matrix should be based on both the emotional state of the employees and the customers.

Gallup’s research has found that banks can build an emotional rela-tionship with customers by building emotional relationship first with em-ployees — but not just a linear rela-tionship.

The miracle is when a branch finds ways to engage both its employees and customers at the same time. When that happens, the branch will be up to five times more successful on any of the key metrics, like rev-enue growth, deposits and loans, on cross selling and upselling to custom-ers etc. and hence the economic eq-uity is anywhere more with engaged

“the secret to driving higher levels of growth and profitability lies in under-standing the powerful role human nature plays in the marketplace and in the workplace.”

The key to financial success is for leaders to work with human nature rather than against it.


feature“Banks have to teach their employees the psychology of customer engagement.”

customers than disengaged custom-ers.

Fig 1.1 illustrates that branches with higher employee engagement are most likely to have higher cus-tomer engagement. When you see a scattered kind of variation on any metric, it means you have a situation that is not being managed. Variation is the scourge of any management task.

All of this plays out the same way in call centers and other touch points where employees meet customers.

ABF: What is the correlation be-tween customer-employee encoun-ter to financial performance?Larry: This correlation can be best explained with figure 1.2. Engaged customers are more likely to spend more with the business and are un-likely to go with a competitor. If this happens at all branches, there is an increase in the bank’s net profit, its revenue and market capital. The bank becomes a leading player in the industry.

ABF: How can banks engage their customers?Larry: The absolute differentiators that make customers highly engaged are how they are remembered and treated when they are walking in the branch or when they are speaking to an employee over the phone. The way the employee connects to customers is how you engage your customers.

Business leaders need to engage their employees to engage their cus-tomers. Banks have to teach their employees the psychology of cus-tomer engagement.

ABF: How do banks find the right kind of talent?

Larry: Behavioral Economics recognizes that people are very different from each other. Some of them are naturally more inclined to work with clients, some behind the scenes, while others are naturally inclined to manage other people.

A psychologically wired branch manager has a direct impact on the growth of the bank. If the branch manager needs to be changed, Gal-lup has a method of designing inter-views that enables our clients to find people who are currently working for them or from outside who are psy-chologically designed to bring out the best of the branch employees and engage the customers.

The number one rule is to begin with the branch manager as the criti-cal point of contact for both custom-ers and employees.

ABF: Do happy employees lead to happy customers?Larry: Not always. When we first entered the field of behavioral eco-nomics, we had a breakthrough that it doesn’t always work this way. Es-sentially, we want to believe that happy employees will lead to happy customers, but that is not true. You can have employees who are highly engaged, but may not directly lead to engaged customers.

Think about the time you went to a store and at the counter, a couple of the employees were having a great time talking to each other. The last thing they wanted was is to be dis-tracted by the customer. We have seen in our research that even though employees may be really happy, their happiness may not directly relate to happy customers. You also have cus-tomers who are very happy but they are happy because the employees

have been asked to work extra hours in order to serve the customers.

Clients we have been working with for many years, if they find in their branches the phenomenon that the customers are engaged but at the same time employees are not engaged, know that the environ-ment won’t sustain in the long haul. Therefore, a business has to aim to be in a position of being above average on both employee engagement and customer engagement or even being on the same level for that will lead to an increase in financial performance.

The key points are that behavioral economics works on both employee engagement and customer engage-ment. Every encounter the customer has with an employee is an opportu-nity to increase the customer engage-ment level. The performance of this encounter is a phenomenon that we have to measure and manage at all levels. Banks that show the most in-terest in behavioral economics and are keen to understand, measure and manage the emotional relationship of customers are the banks who are on the forefront of the industry for they are the ones who are most competi-tive.

Larry Emond, Managing Partner and Chief Marketing Officer of Gallup Consulting

Optimization at Bank S I 2004 (Fig 1.1)

Source: Gallup Consulting

What have been the results? I Bank S (Fig 1.2)

Source: Gallup Consulting

“The new capital injection means we are extremely well placed to continue

with our bold expansion strategy.”

Cambodia retail bank of the Year- aba bank

ABA Bank: A Trusted Brand with a Loyal Client Base

Tracing its roots from October 1996 as a commercial bank in The Kingdom of Cambodia, Advanced Bank of Asia

Limited or ABA Bank has evolved to be one of the most dynamic institutions for banking and customer services.

Serving both corporate and private clients, ABA Bank has grown from a small banking institution with around 20 employees to 204 employees to meet the growing market de-mands.

ABA Bank’s edge over other banksABA Bank prides itself to be the leader in providing the most advanced internet and mobile banking technology in Cambodia. But what sets them apart is their interna-tional and highly experienced management team, that also has an excellent team of young professionals down the line.

“ABA Bank’s key to success is our team. Simple as that. A highly experienced inter-national top management team working together with the best local minds to bring its customers services of international qual-ity. From this we are able to create the prod-ucts and services that are of high quality and stand out between other alternatives,” said Chief Marketing Officer Juveris Tenisons.

In 2010, ABA Bank added another achievement to its portfolio as it won the prestigious “HSBC Global Payments and Cash Management 2010 Golden Award.”

Mr. Hersel Mehani, Senior Vice President of Global Pay-ment and Cash Management at HSBC described ABA Bank to have an “excellent standard,” which serves as Cambodia’s global link to the international banking system.

ABA has been the fastest organically growing bank in Cambodia for the past two years providing customers with a wide range of advanced banking technologies such as iBanking and eCare, as well as developing an ever-growing network of full service branches and ATMs.

Over the last 12 months, assets have more than doubled from $97.3 million to $196.1 million. Bank deposits grew more than two times from $77.7 million at the end of June 2010 to $161.3 million at June end 2011.

Striving to achieve moreBut ABA Bank doesn’t stop there, as it con-tinues to seek growth and success. It has

increased its registered capital to US$36 million to comply with new National Bank of Cambodia (NBC) minimum capital re-quirements due to come into force at the end of year 2010.

“The new capital injection means we are extremely well placed to continue with our bold expansion strategy,” said

CEO Madi Akmambet.With the new capital in-

jection, ABA is in great po-sition to provide innovative new banking products and services to the market, which includes deposit and savings plans for retail customers, visa and mastercard prod-ucts, car loans and home

mortgages. It also provides secure inter-net banking services to allow customers to manage their finances from the com-fort of their home or office.

For small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), entrepreneurs and larger corpo-rate clients, ABA provides a full range of banking services, including deposits, busi-ness loans, remittances and payroll man-agement.

The mid-sized lender now has eight full-service branches across the country’s three major commercial centres and an ever ex-panding network of ATMs, putting it on a

par with the leading banks in the country and well ahead of its mid-sized competi-tors.

Keeping a positive outlookConsequently, different challenges go along with having a trusted brand in the banking industry. But Mr. Tenisons said, “Our loyal client base, our overall success of the bank and international acknowledg-ments through awards for the successful work that we are doing is the power and energy that keeps us going forward and helps us overcome any challenges that we encounter.”

As ABA realizes that its growth would not have been possible without its loyal cli-ents and supporters, the Bank had extend-ed loans worth $94.23 million by the end of June 2011, more than 100% the same time last year June end 2010 when it had lent just $46.8 million.

“By continuing to innovate and expand, we are confident we can cement our grow-ing reputation as one of Cambodia’s lead-ing banks,” said Mr. Akmambet.

ABA BANK: Conquering the banking business in Cambodia


CONTACTTel: +855 23 225 333Email: [email protected]: www.ababank.com

ABA Bank: A Trusted Brand with a Loyal Client Base

“...implementing a new core banking

system was not an easy task.”

best Core banking initiative - bank danamon indonesia

New Core Banking System: Key to Success for BDIA vision that includes change is vital

for the growth of any organisation in a competitive market. When

Bank Danamon Indonesia (BDI) embarked on its journey of transformation in 2004, its key strategic programme, bolstered by the objective of becoming Indonesia’s leading financial institution, was based on this fun-damental rationale.

Challenges of the new NCBS programmeIt started with preparing an IT End State and Roadmap aiming at superior customer experience, cost-effective delivery, sound MIS and risk management, and secure, re-silient banking environment. In addition, multiple projects and programmes were defined covering infrastructure and appli-cations. Above all, the replacement of ICBS by New Core Banking System (NCBS) was the key strategic programme for making a quantum jump in flexibility, speed to mar-ket, service quality, reliability and scalabil-ity, Mr Kanchan Nijasure, CIO, BDI, shares.

However, implementing a new core banking system was not an easy task. Mr Nijasure identifies the challenges that faced the NCBS programme—minimising in-convenience to customers, uninterrupted roll-out of all IT initiatives to support busi-ness growth and continued timely report-ing to the regulators and top management. Moreover, the internal conditions and cir-cumstances in BDI added on to the complexity of the re-placement project. BDI’s oper-ations spanned over three dif-ferent time zones with different clearing time windows. Also, most of the branches across In-donesia’s vast archipelago were operating in low bandwidth infrastructure. That was not all. “Many lines of business, large number of branches across different time zones, multiple clearing windows, multiple chan-nels and several interfaces added to the complexity,” Mr Nijasure recalls.

Facing challenges with strategic choicesAt this point, the Bank made four strategic choices, worked through the implications and executed them with a rigorous disci-pline:

• It looked at defining and building an insulation layer to minimize customer and user inconvenience while the system

was being implemented. This insulation layer ensured that all customer transactions would take place in “business as usual” mode, irrespective of the stage of imple-mentation covering branches, electronic channels, external payment systems and diverse internal applications.

• Managing the entire programme in manageable bites with tangi-ble progress at each stage was critical. Hence, the implemen-tation was planned in three broad phases, namely Enter-prise GL, Mass Market Busi-ness and Conventional Bank-ing Business. The conversion of branches was carried out in waves defined by clearing

windows applicable to different regions. All users were given extensive hands-on train-ing. Soft Launch was done at each branch with use of Buddy Bankers in initial weeks for each conversion wave.

• A disaster recovery readiness at every stage during the implementation was also considered necessary. Hence, right from the beginning, the new system was made available from the Main Data Centre and Back-up Data Centre with synchronous data replication and zero data loss. During the implementation, the system was oper-ated from either Data Centre with well-

planned forward and backward swing-over.• Last but not the least, it was important

to make Bank Danamon Team as the Sys-tems Integrator for the programme. Whilst this ensured full engagement of the related user areas and IT during planning, ex-ecution and support of production, it also eliminated the dangers of critical knowl-edge gaps affecting either the project or production.

The NCBS programme was initiated in June 2007 and completed in August 2010. “Customers did not have to change their account numbers or know whether a given branch had been converted. Furthermore, during the implementation, Adira Quan-tum and Pawn-broking businesses were launched. Consumer Internet Banking and Contact Centre were implemented in parallel with NCBS. Every month, ac-curate regulatory reports and MIS reports were produced on time. The programme was completed within budget despite scope enhancements and major changes in Bank Danamon top management,” Mr Nijasure highlights.

Mr Kanchan Nijasure, Chief information officer of Bank Danamon Indonesia


CONTACTTel: +62-81586500-150Email: [email protected]: www.danamon.co.id

“While the credit cardmarket in Indonesia suffered a negative

growth, Bank Mandiri have positive YTD

growth of 19.96% at the end of the year.”

best direCt marketing Campaign in indonesia- bank mandiri

Soaring and Aiming HighMaking a name in the banking industry

Formed on 2 October 1998 as a part of the Government of Indonesia’s bank restructuring program, Bank

Mandiri has now transformed into one of Indonesia’s strongest retail banks. With-out leaving its previous core competency in corporate banking, Bank Mandiri has succeeded to penetrate the retail banking segment and draw consumers’ attention. In this segment, Bank Mandiri now has a full range of retail product and services, including a rising star product, credit card.

In so short a time, Bank Mandiri became one of the biggest credit card issuers in In-donesia. Since the full operation of issuing credit cards in 2003, we are now in top 4 in terms of the receivables, holding 11% of the market share (May 2011). Our credit card business is constantly growing more than 30% annually and receiving acknowl-edgements from renowned institutions, both in the national and regional scope.

Target goals for the futureIn line with our corporate plan for the next 5 years, the goal of credit card business in Bank Mandiri is to be the top issuer in the market by growing 5 times in 6 years, achieving 12.5% market share. It was seen as an aggressive goal since the credit card market in Indonesia is highly competitive. After 6 months of strategic planning, we believe that strong knowledge about our customers is the key to reach the goal.

To make it visible, we picked the concept of Cus-tomer Lifecycle Management (CLM) as our key enabler. The basic concept of CLM is to treat cardholders based on their lifecycle and behav-ior and deal with them differently. Since every cardholder is different, then the huge number of cardholders become a real challenge. To find their similarities, cluster them, and treat them with a ‘per-sonalized’ relationship will need special business requirements such as analytic capabilities, robust IT system, and infra-structure.

Following that strategy, several initia-tives were designed and executed in early 2010. We felt that the key initiatives should include all aspects because CLM does not simply equate with IT (Information Tech-

nology). It’s the human and organizational aspect of analytical competencies that are truly differentiating. We believe that to be able to build CLM capabilities, it requires at least three initiatives:

1. Designing the organizational struc-ture

2. Creating analytical competencies and having a customer-centric mindset

3. Developing system and infrastructure

It might be too early to say that the CLM is a success, but after a year of implemen-tation, we believe that this strategy has started to pay off. Using our portfolio data,

the value per customer, treated based on his lifecycle and behavior, has increased after the implementation. In contrast, the control population (a group of customer that haven’t been treated differently) has showed a negative value movement.

Our program campaign has also be-come more efficient and effective. In the external market, we compared how the whole portfolio has changed. We took data from the central bank and we used YTD growth of receivables in quarter from year 2010 to compare with receivables position as of December 2009. Surprisingly, while

the credit card market in Indonesia suf-fered a negative growth, Bank Mandiri achieved positive YTD growth of 19.96% at the end of the year. Visa Worldwide, on their Strategic Portfolio Insight (SPI) Report on June 2010, stated that Mandiri Visa’s growth was much better than the industry. A survey done by a well known world research company has also stated that in 2010, even though Mandiri was still in #3 in the Brand Equity Index, it was the only issuer that was rising up in all 6 big cities in Indonesia while the other top big five issuers were experiencing downgrade.

Last but not least, the Asian Banking & Finance Magazine has granted us The Best Direct Marketing Campaign at the ABF - Retail Banking Awards held last July 2011. We realized that our achievements so far were only small steps compared to our goal of achieving a potentially huge gain from our CLM implementation strategy. We will continue to aim for improvements in this initiative and believe that this would lead us to reach our vision to become the most admired issuer for innovation, com-petitiveness, and efficiency.

Mansyur S. Nasution, Senior Executive Vice President, Bank Mandiri


CONTACTTel: (021)- 5299-7777Website: www.bankmandiri.co.id

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“It’s the new concept bank, where comfort

trumps formality.”

lebanon retail bank of the Year - federal bank of lebanon

Brand makeover: Federal Bank of Lebanon s.a.l. Federal Bank of Lebanon s.a.l. is one of

the oldest banks and amongst the first 30 banks to be licensed in Lebanon. It

was founded in 1952 and since then, it has been providing a full range of products and services including commercial, trade and corporate finance, retail banking, plastic cards, wealth management and financial market brokerage to its customers. Federal Bank of Lebanon is part of a group of banks that are based in Cyprus, Tanzania, Russia and soon China. Due to the regrettable civil war in the 70s, the bank had to curtail its ac-tivities in Lebanon and redirect its energies toward the international scene, while keep-ing its presence in Lebanon.

New leader, new strategiesIn 2008, a new management team under the leadership of Mr. M. Yasser Mortada, CEO - General Manager, developed a new strategy to re-introduce and reinforce the bank’s presence in Lebanon. Federal Bank of Lebanon reinvented itself with a brand new identity, with a logo completely reworked for an attractive vibrant new look. The total makeover, however, was not just aesthetic: it was carried out on a conceptual and practi-cal level as well. The essence of this remod-eling was to spare no effort in making the customer’s experience as comfortable and as personal as possible. With this drive, Federal Bank of Lebanon was thus transformed into a Boutique Bank, making it the first of its kind in Lebanon and the MENA region. The concept emphasized on completely re-moving the counter and creat-ing a one-to-one personalized desk. This was seen as a revolu-tion in the art of banking and the Federal Bank of Lebanon emerged as a leader in pioneer-ing the change.

Furthermore, the bank revealed its new image and identity in 2010 through a full-fledged campaign covering a new concept for the branches, new communication, TV commercials, radio, billboards, press, newspapers etc. The new logo completed its brand image. The typeface is an elegant professional font in solid grey, denoting strength of character. The icon is a reverse apostrophe, in bold fuchsia/red. It stands for openness, contrary to a regular apostro-phe which serves to close a quote, and looks forward to the beyond, as if it were an ellip-

sis, anticipating the ongoing future. It also stands for a modern couch, symbolizing the hospitality of the bank and the warm com-fort therein.

The challenge was to revolutionize bank-ing as it was known. This was achieved by adopting the one-to-one banking experi-ence and making it accessible to the public.

It was based on the rationale that it would carve a unique identity that would serve to raise Federal Bank of Lebanon above the competition, and turn it into an immediately recognizable name in the busi-ness.

A complete makeoverThe changes did not only occur in the bank as it did business now, the complete corpo-rate environment underwent a makeover. “It’s the new concept bank, where comfort trumps formality. According to many bank-ers, designers and developers, the days of echoing monolith bank buildings of mar-ble and granite, or buildings full of fluores-cent lighting and colourless cubicles, may be numbered,” says Mortada. In short, the Federal Bank of Lebanon, through its new concept, has combined a bank with a hotel reception.

In its new avatar, the branch is divided into

two main areas: the reception area and the workstation area. The reception area is man-aged by a Meeter-Greeter (MG) from a Hotel Management background. The purpose of this area is to receive the client and convey to him/her the hotel reception feeling and professional service. The client will then be directly accompanied to the working station area by the Meeter-Greeter. The working sta-tion area is managed by a Relationship Man-ager (RM) supervising different Relationship Officers (RO). It is formed of desks “one-stop shop”. Every Relationship Officer will re-ceive one client at a time and can provide a full range of banking services. No counters, only desks managed by relationship officers trained to execute and process any type of transactions from account opening, with-drawals, deposits, retail loans, payments, etc.

You may call this concept “Relational” or “Dialogue” Banking, the “Retail” or “Bou-tique” Experience, the “Lounge-Style” or “Coffee-Shop-Style” branch, but all of these have one thing in common; they are adding a human, homely element to banking, Mor-tada thinks.

Mr. Mohamad Yasser Mortada, the Chief Executive Officer of Federal Bank of Lebanon s.a.l.


CONTACTTel: +961-1-212300/6Email address: [email protected]: www.fbl.com.lb

“HLF is dedicated to continually deepen

ties with both its corporate and retail

customers.”

singapore finanCe CompanY of the Year- hong leong finanCe

50 years of glory: Hong Leong FinanceHong Leong Finance (HLF) group

traces it roots back to 1961 when it began life as a humble loans and de-

posits firm. Little did its stakeholders know that 50 years down the line, what started as a small and medium enterprise (SME) would evolve into Singapore’s largest finance company with a distribution network of 28 branches.

Today, as the financial services arm of the Hong Leong Group Singapore, HLF offers an extensive and comprehensive suite of fi-nancial products, spanning from deposits to loans for individuals and corporations. Drawing on its journey as an SME, HLF has dedicated itself to helping others grow. It is one of the pioneers in the Local Enterprise Finance Scheme administered by SPRING Singapore and a leader in SME financing, providing a slew of government-assisted pro-grammes to aid companies in their growth.

To commemorate its 50th anniversary this year, HLF is taking its commitment to help-ing SMEs to greater heights. It launched spe-cial financing packages to defray their rising business operating cost, by providing value bundles for SMEs to lower financing cost for factoring, accounts receivables, as well as residential and commercial properties with a one month interest waiver for equipment financing option. A deposit campaign with special rates and Jubilee Mug give-aways were also rolled out to reward its loyal cus-tomers.

HLF has also enhanced its distribution network with the latest initiative on SME Centre@Branches for customer conven-ience. To date, four new SME Centres at City Square Mall Ju-rong East and Bedok have been set up. The latest of which just opened in July 2011.

“The centres bring us closer to the business community in all parts of Singapore. The one-stop financing centre provides easy ac-cess and facilitates business activities which are popular with our customers. Plans to roll out more centres are in the pipeline,” said Mr Ian Macdonald, President of Leong Finance.

Not forgetting its loyal retail customers, HLF strives to offer competitive interest rates and is a key lender in the HDB home loan market. The HDB home loan is an impor-tant and pivotal component in the overall HLF’s business growth strategy, Mr Macdon-ald reveals.

HLF is also reaching out to customers in cyberspace, by revamping its website. The new portal www.hlf.com.sg incorporates more user-friendly features like the “Con-cierge” service which offers users quick con-nection to the required information. Visitors to the site can also be updated with up-to-date news through its Channel NewsAsia

(CNA) newsfeed.Throughout changing land-

scapes over the past 50 years, one thing remains the same – the strong relationship HLF has enjoyed with its stakeholders and business partners. HLF is dedicated to continually deep-en ties with both its corporate and retail customers.

Reflecting on its long-term partnership with local entrepreneurs, Mr Macdonald smiles, “Our customers tell us that they en-joy our consistent personalized services as they like to be served by familiar Relation-ship Managers who understand their needs. Because they trust our service, we have seen many new customers referred by them. We would like to thank them for our success to-day.”

HLF believes in taking a holistic approach to nurturing the SME community – not just by working with public and private stake-holders to contribute to SME-geared events

and initiatives but also through constant upgrading of its products and services. The company strives to deliver revolutionary and relevant customer-centric financial solutions by tapping on innovation and enhancing executive capabilities for the benefit of both corporate and retail customers to maintain its competitive edge in the Singapore finan-cial landscape.

Going forward, with the uncertainties in overseas economic and financial markets, HLF is taking a cautiously optimistic view in business investment and expansion plans to tap on the growing affluent market in Singa-pore. Its primary focus remains in the prop-erty and SME markets to build a sustainable loan portfolio growth and retain its leader-ship in financing. While challenges lie ahead, HLF will remain vigilant of the risks, monitor changes and developments closely in order to capitalize on openings that may arise. With its core strategy in place and determination to succeed, HLF is well placed to continue to be a key player in the Singapore financial community in the next 50 years of its service to the Singapore consumers and SMEs


CONTACTMs Yet Pek Yeen Tel: (65) 6415 9340 Email: [email protected]: www.hlf.com.sg

SME Centre at City Square Mall


“The key successful factor for PrimeCredit

is listening to the customers.”

hong kong finance company of the year- primecredit brothers

PrimeCredit Brothers: Leading by example

Though finance companies have been labelled as “loan sharks”, PrimeCredit Brothers, Hong Kong, has success-

fully managed to change the customers’ perspective with an image that is not just friendly but also very professional.

The 3-D Innovation ProcessHow did PrimeCredit manage to clear that stigma? Through a three dimensional proc-ess of innovation, says PrimeCredit’s head of marketing Emily Chow. The first strategy involved an innovative brand strategy that rode on the insight that consumers were looking for a more promising and efficient loan application experience to address their immediate monetary needs after numerous rejections from banks. Based on research findings, the brand strategy of PrimeCredit Brothers was then developed.

“From focus groups, we understand that the target customers of financial institutions in Hong Kong do not solely focus on product features. They are more concerned about the commitment to help them through flexibil-ity of application procedure as well as advices on repayment plan provided by the financial institution as they might have encountered a certain level of dissatisfaction throughout the loan approval process from banks before approaching us, such as not enough loan amount, being requested to provide a lot of documents, longer approval process. There-fore, we developed an imagery icon of “PrimeCredit Brothers” for our personal loan service, which in Chinese society means of being supportive and negoti-able, telling the customers that we, PrimeCredit, are more committed to help them and more negotiable throughout the loan approval process pro-vided with flexible applicable requirement and more options for repayment plans. The icon of “PrimeCredit Brothers” had made us become friendlier and closer to the consum-ers,” Chow shares.

On top of the wide range of loan products provided, a new product called Stand-By Cash was developed. It was a new product in the market with a unique feature of up to a 100 days Interest-free period for Card repay-ment settlement.

The success of the innovative changes is measured by three methods in PrimeCredit Brothers:

• Qualitative measurement – that is the brand performance, which includes the brand awareness, brand preference, etc.

• Quantitative measurement – it refers to business performance which includes leads generation, market share, business growth

• Servicing Index – that is customers’ feed-backs on our services, such as staff’s polite-

ness, professionalism, turna-round time, etc.

Key to success: Listening to customersChow emphasises that riding on the well-built friendly and supportive image in sub-prime personal loan segment, it is necessary to elevate the prod-

uct positioning of “being supportive” from a product level to a brand level covering all range of products by implementing a brand campaign. “The brotherhood image at the moment was developed for personal loan products only. Coming forward, we would elevate the essence to the brand level and bring it across all products.

Therefore telling the consumers that PrimeCredit has always been supportive to our consumers for more than 30 years, bringing them with a wider choice of prod-ucts and higher quality of services across all products, from P-loan to mortgage, VISA

card and deposit service, providing them with more professional financing service.”

To further uplift the brand equity, PrimeCredit has also put a lot of efforts in taking up social responsibility, such as con-tributing to volunteering services and do-nation. “Further mileages could be made possible in area of expanding our target segments, providing better services to more people other than traditional personal loan segment only. Apart from it, taking up the role of a responsible corporate citizenship shall not be neglected. Therefore, we will also be participating more proactively in social services, e.g. charity activities and educating the public about better financing management,” she shares.

All in all, the key successful factor for PrimeCredit is “Listening to the customers”, therefore, we organize a lot of focus groups and conduct a series of surveys to under-stand how they think and what they need. Through this, Prime Credit knows what it must do to provide a better service to its valuable customers.

3 - Dimension Innovation from PrimeCredit Brothers


CONTACTTel: 852-2111 2999Email address: [email protected] Website: www.primecredit.com


“Public Bank is focusing not only on investment in mod-ern ICT but also on

investment in human capital and talent

development.”

malaysia retail bank of the year- public bank malaysia

Embracing Innovation

Innovation and effective execution of business strategies help Public Bank in defending and growing its market share,

not only in its lending and deposit taking businesses, but also in its new businesses such as wealth management and bancassur-ance.

Public Bank’s Competitive AdvantageAmidst the highly competitive banking landscape in Malaysia, Public Bank embrac-es innovation by using modern information and communication technology (ICT) as a strategic tool to innovate new products and services, new delivery channels, new proc-esses, and improve delivery standards to meet demands from discerning customers. Public Bank uses modern ICT to provide high value propositions and enhance cus-tomer experience to sustain its competitive advantage. Public Bank is focusing not only on investment in modern ICT, but also on investment in human capital and talent de-velopment and retention. Looking forward, the capacity to innovate will remain a major competitive advantage for Public Bank.

In its lending business, Public Bank has two flagship products, namely the 5HOME Plan for home mortgages and the SWIFT Plan for small- and medium-sized busi-nesses to expand their operations. The 5Home Plan is highly popular as it makes home ownership in Malaysia easy by pro-viding a wide range of home financing packages, depend-ing on customer needs. The SWIFT Plan offers small- and medium-sized enterprises a combination of asset financing with working capital financing and trade lines. In its deposit-taking business, Public Bank offers a wide range of ringgit saving products plus structured investment products, Gold Investment Account and foreign currency deposits, including New Zealand Dollar, Australian Dollar and Chi-nese Renminbi deposits to provide greater choices to the customer. Public Bank was the first bank in Malaysia to allow account holders of Gold Investment Account to per-form online gold trading via the Bank’s web portal.

Strategies for Superior Customer ServicePublic Bank has entered into a 10-year stra-tegic alliance with ING Insurance to be a

main bancassurance provider in Malaysia and the Asia-Pacific. Jointly with ING In-surance, Public Bank enters into a family takaful business this year. In addition, Pub-lic Bank provides a wide range of remittance services and cash and channel management services. Public Bank has also introduced its mobile banking channel, in addition to its

established Internet banking channel and wide distribution of self-service terminals.

The Bank’s electronic Loan Delivery System has been im-proved to incorporate higher levels of straight-through-processing for faster loan ap-proval turnaround time. Cus-tomers can straight away apply

for various types of insurance products and credit cards when they submit their appli-cations for home loans. To speed up loan applications, the Group’s marketing staff is equipped with portable biometrics readers to authenticate customer identity outside banking hours and at customers’ premises. However, there were challenges in the im-plementation. “The key challenge was to meet increased customer expectations and ensure speed-to-market of new products and services, amidst the highly competitive banking landscape in Malaysia. Further-more, product cycle for banking products

and services has become shorter than ever due to increased industry-wide innovation capability and competition,” says Tan Sri Dato’ Sri Dr Teh Hong Piow, Founder and Chairman of Public Bank.

To cope, the Bank was constantly on its toes by taking pre-emptive steps to be at the front curve of competition. The steps included providing the broad range of high quality products and services to the customer in the most efficient, timely and cost-effective manner. Efforts to sustain the Bank’s superior customer service (such as the Bank’s 2-minute Standard Waiting Time) across all domestic branches were unabated. The Bank listened closely to its staff and customers through focus groups for new ideas to get relevant insight and business feedback from them. Customer needs analyses and customer satisfaction surveys through “mystery shoppers” have formed part of the Bank’s efforts to drive customer segment strategies. Public Bank has developed a pool of dedicated staff to champion product and service innovation.

Tan Sri Dato’ Sri Dr Teh Hong Piow, Founder and Chairman of Public Bank


CONTACTDaTo’ Chang KaT KiamChief operating officerTel: 03-2163 9797Email: [email protected]


“We concentrate our resources in

developing the two main strategies of

SME baking and retail banking.”

vietnam retail bank of the year - techcom bank

TECHCOMBANK: Roaring Success

Vietnam Technological and Com-mercial Joint Stock Bank, com-monly known as Techcombank,

is one of the largest and fastest growing commercial banks in Vietnam. Since its inception in 1993, the bank has demon-strated strong growth over the years, con-sistently exceeding 30% in both total as-sets and annual turnover. Its total assets in 2010 are almost 14 times of those in 2005, while the profits before tax have increased almost tenfold in the same period.

Strategic collaborationsIn 2006, Techcombank became the first Vietnamese bank to form a strategic part-nership with HSBC. As a result, HSBC’s banking knowledge and best practices were transferred to Techcombank, espe-cially in the risk management and retail banking area. In 2009, Techcombank’s collaboration with McKinsey brought strategic and technical support in the fields of management and development strategy.

The support from McKinsey helped the bank to refine its focus on both SME banking and retail banking.

By the end of June 2011, total assets of Techcombank reached over VND 176,822 billion. Today, with an extensive network spanning nearly 300 branches/TSO and 1,091 ATMs; and a strong workforce of 7,337 professionally trained staff, Techcombank is well-placed to serve more than 60,000 enterprises and 2 mil-lion individual customers all over the country.

“In order to achieve our as-piration of becoming the best bank and the leading busi-ness in Vietnam, we concen-trate our resources in developing the two main strategies of SME banking and retail banking,” says Techcombank Vietnam CEO Nguyen Duc Vinh.

SME banking forms the most important section of the economy. Techcombank re-alised that it’s also one of the monitors of Vietnamese economic growth in the up-coming years.

Techcombank created a specialised transaction banking unit to offer SMEs products such as the supply channel, fi-nancial trade as well as technology-related products like internet banking.

Retail Banking and Risk ManagementRetail banking in Vietnam is quite a new segment but Techcombank has developed a comprehensive strategy to target it. “The market is still young with only traditional financial needs but we are set to provide a range of diversified to the latest products ranging from a very traditional one to latest

technology-related products like internet banking. It can be said that we are ahead of the market and most of our com-petitors ,” he underlines.

Risk management is another key area that the bank has bol-stered in the last two years. A new Credit Oversight Unit and an appraisal office were

established in order to enhance debt qual-ity management capabilities and consolidate debt management into principal customer groups: corporate clients, retail customers and institutional finance clients. The en-hancement of the comprehensive risk man-agement framework helped us reduce the ratio of non-performing loan to 2.29% as of 31 December 2010.

With active support from its strategic part-ners, HSBC and Mc Kinsey, the years 2009 and 2010 saw the bank complete the first phase of TechcomOne – a 5 year transforma-tion program, in which it vigorously trans-

formed and restructured all functional units towards specialisation based on a modern global bank model. The most remarkable was the creation of a specialised Sales and Distribution Division independent of busi-ness and support functions. This allowed Techcombank to respond more effectively to the banking needs of each customer seg-ment. “In 2009 and 2010, we also mobilised every resource to strengthen our founda-tions in order to consolidate on the course of transforming Techcombank into a modern and professional bank, including strategy, or-ganisation structure, human resources, risk management, technology, and sales and dis-tribution (Branch network). In terms of hu-man resources, we implemented a number of initiatives to realise the mission of “creating the best environment for employees”. This resulted in a 38% increase in our workforce, bringing the total number of employees to 6,960 by end of 2010. “With the constant in-crease in the workforce, Techcombank aims to further leverage on staff capabilities and professionalism as key factors for rapid and sustainable growth,” Duc Vinh says.

Nguyen Duc Vinh, CEO, Techcombank


CONTACTTEChComBanKTel: +84(4) 39446368Email: [email protected]: www.techcombank.com.vn

VIETNAM TECHNOLOGICAL AND COMMERCIAL JOINT STOCK BANK70-72 Ba Trieu Street, Hoan Kiem District, Hanoi, VietnamTel: +84(4) 39446368Fax: +84(4) 39446362

www.techcombank.com.vn

Strong Breakthrough


“OCBC works strategically with

SMEs to help them achieve the

different milestones in their business life cycle.”

best asean sme bank - ocbc bank singapore

OCBC: Banking through sickness and health

You may have a great proposition and a superb business model, good knowledge of the market, the prod-

uct or service that you wish to deliver may be excellent, yet the blood that will keep your business alive and breathing till the end is the cash flow. Sound financing is important to the entrepreneur or SME who is looking at scaling up their businesses profitably and sustainably. This is when a bank like OCBC can be your partner to help you achieve your goals. “We focus on serving SMEs across the full life cycle, including the early-stages, which many banks have tended to neglect,” says OCBC Bank Executive Vice President and Global Head for Enterprise Banking and Financial Institutions Linus Goh.

Goh underlines that SMEs today are no longer bound to the geographical limits of Singapore. They could be Singapore compa-nies who have chosen to grow by venturing overseas, but they could also be overseas companies who use Singapore as a platform to access the region. Many second or third-generation SME owners are also revamping their business models to internationalise their operations.

The trends today are dynamism and con-tinued growth. OCBC works strategically with SMEs to help them achieve the differ-ent milestones in their business life cycle by partnering them at a young age and growing with them. “We serve one in two businesses in the early stage of their life, and that enables us to get in ear-ly and understand their aspira-tions and plans, and we play the role as an advisor. We have had the privilege of partnering with many young businesses to see it is easy to be tempted to over expand, venture into too many markets or over extend oneself in terms of investments,” Goh cautions.

Of course, there are specific milestones to reach as you start off, but across the whole life cycle, the fear is that if you have made it to one milestone, how would you get the support to make it to the next? How do you ensure that you minimise the risk of failure? “There are so many businesses that thrive in the early end of the process and then struggle later. Often, it is not because the business idea or the business model isn’t good enough. Very often, it has to do with the fact that maybe the cash flow needed to run the operation or the way to apportion

the limited capital may have not been opti-mal. So from our perspective, many SMEs have this fear that they will run out of cash to do the business. They feel they have a good model and have won customers over, but are not able to push it on to the next milestone because of not having the right level of sup-port—financial or otherwise.”

SMEs as the focus of OCBC’s services

In fact, the SME business is at the core of OCBC’s focus, Goh points out. OCBC’s portfolio reflects that many companies have been with the bank for 20-30 years. “We have been able to work with them through these

years. It’s about helping them get started and knowing how to anticipate their needs as they expand -- when they need trade or foreign exchange facilities, when they need to finance their commercial property or ex-pand overseas, when they need to engage different forms of financing, even leverag-ing on the government schemes and how we help them avail all of these things,” Goh shares.

OCBC’s support to the SMEs goes beyond financial help. The bank also believes in giv-ing recognition to SMEs. Having spent years on the ground with their customers, OCBC

understands that SME owners are proud of their business achievements and they would like to be respected and recognised for their success. Hence, the Bank introduced the OCBC Business Card in November 2010. This is the first customisable platinum debit Mastercard that gives business owners the option of having their company logos and corporate titles imprinted on their cards. This unique feature will help SMEs build the companies’ brand recognition and brand equity as well.

In addition, OCBC is also the main spon-sor for four top awards programmes that give recognition to the SME owner as he grows his business through the different stages of the business life cycle. These in-clude the Emerging Enterprise Award that is tailored for small businesses, the Enterprise 50 (E50) Awards that is targeted at local and privately-owned enterprises, the Busi-ness China Awards which give recognition to global enterprises, and the Entrepreneur of the Year Award that pays tribute to out-standing entrepreneurs.

Mr Linus Goh, Executive VP and Global Head, Enterprise Banking & Financial Institutions, OCBC Bank


CONTACTTel: (65) 6538 1111Email: [email protected]: www.ocbc.com/sme-banking/


“We feel iOCBC TradeMobile will give

investors greater control over their

investments.”

best online banking / securities in singapore - ocbc securities

OCBC Securities: Smarter trading on the go

OCBC Securities Private Limited (“OCBC Securities”) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of OCBC Bank

and member of the Singapore Exchange Securities Trading Limited (SGX-ST) and the Singapore Exchange Derivatives Trading Limited (SGX-DT). Having been in the business for more than 20 years, it has grown to become one of the leading stock and futures broking firms in Sin-gapore, providing full brokerage services for equities and derivatives trading. It em-ploys state-of-the-art technology to deliv-er speedy multi-market electronic execu-tion of trades for investors. Investors can leverage on our extensive Direct Market Access (DMA) trading platform to access multiple markets in one single account.

Breaking the traditional online tradingOne of the key thrusts of OCBC Securi-ties has been focused on bridging the gaps of traditional online trading to provide in-vestors with more investment options to capture market opportunities with speed, convenience and accessibility. The key as-pect found lacking in traditional browser-based online trading is that it typically confines investors to their work stations.

At this current condition, where time is of great value and individuals need to constantly commute from one place to an-other, it is increasingly becoming impor-tant that we deliver a product or service that reflects and complements the demands and lifestyles of today’s in-vestors. iOCBC TradeMobile comes with a solution that al-lows investors to keep abreast of market situations, monitor and manage their investments on the go. The application-based platform also provides more room for intuitively, a smarter and sleeker in-terface and a no frills, hassle-free trading experience. Investors can also be assured that their trades are executed in a timely and secured manner.

“When we first launched the browser-based mobile trading service more than three years ago, investors could only trade direct on the Singapore Exchange, and we saw the usage grow steadily by about 15% each year. We obtained feedback from our customers on how we can improve this service and found that there is defi-

nitely a demand for more features and a more intuitive trading portal.

With the proliferation of more afford-able smart phones and lower-priced data plans, coupled with Singapore’s continued push to extend broadband access to pub-lic places through its Wireless@SG initia-tive, we anticipate that more investors will

use this channel to trade,” says OCBC Securities Man-aging Director Ho Yew Ping.

iOCBC TradeMobile proves its worthAs global markets continue to evolve, investors are pre-sented with different invest-ment opportunities across

countries and markets. “Since launching our direct market access network to 9 key exchanges, we have seen our monthly trade value to these key securities ex-changes rise. As a result, we feel iOCBC TradeMobile will give investors greater control over their investments since they can now effectively capture market op-portunities on the go, as long as they have their mobile devices,” Mr Hui Yew Ping shares.

First introduced on the iPhone plat-form, iOCBC TradeMobile has evolved and gone through several additions and

enhancements. Today, the application is available across a comprehensive suite of mobile platforms such as the iPad, BlackBerry, Android, and Java-enabled mobile devices. At the recent OCBC Se-curities Global Investors Forum, iOCBC TradeMobile was showcased across vari-ous platforms that cater to the different lifestyle and mobile preferences of inves-tors. More than 1000 attendees, including world renowned guest speakers, were first hand witnesses to the event.

Striving for greater heightsiOCBC TradeMobile has once again reached another significant milestone in winning this award. Mr Hui Yew Ping added, “It is a firm testament to our strategy and effort continuing to innovate and differentiate our product and services to not only achieve quality delivery to our customers but also to position us to continue scaling new heights as the leading brokerage regionally.”

Capture market opportunities on the go

CONTACTTel: 1800 338 8688 (Local Toll Free number) (65) 6338 8688 (From overseas) (02) 6338 8688 (From malaysia)Email address: [email protected]: www.iocbc.com



As with its predecessor, the new 5-year Development Plan attaches importance to continuing financial sector reform in four

main areas: (i) strengthening financial institutions, (ii) development of financial markets, (iii) improvements to monetary policy instruments, and (iv) enhancement of the supervisory framework. However, this 12th 5-Year Plan remains disappointingly general as it lacks important specifics such as the role of foreign investors and a clear chronogram for financial reform.

In any event, the Plan appears to introduce two major breakthroughs in financial reforms. The first is interest rate liberalization, which is clearly stated in the plan. The second is capital account liberalization, although one really needs some goodwill from the part of the reader to understand that it will be happening based on the wording of the Plan.

On Interest Rate LiberalizationRegarding interest rate liberalization, the key and more urgent change is to free the ceiling on the deposit rate. Currently, the PBoC maintains

a ceiling on deposit rates for all tenors and a floor on lending rates expressed as a fraction of 0.9 of the benchmark rate (in 2004 the ceiling on lending rates was removed). It is anticipated that the deposit rate will be allowed to fluctuate first, which will imply an upward movement as banks compete among themselves for funds. As for the lending rate, while competition should already exist today (there is

actually no ceiling for lending), evidence shows that bank borrowers are generally charged the minimum lending rate. If that minimum lending rate were to disappear after the deposit rate is liberalized - which should be the logical order to follow - price competition would increase, probably resulting in a decline in real interest rates. Finally, a precondition for a successful freeing of the deposit rate is to reduce the liquidity in the system so that banks have an interest in bidding up the interest rate to attract depositors.

The introduction of interest rate liberalization will probably have major implications for the financial sector landscape due to an increase in competition and the related decline in margins and, thereby, in profitability. However, the Plan should also create new business opportunities in the financial sector based on the extension of banking services to the household and SME sectors. The former implies a much bigger role for retail banking, especially in consumer finance and wealth management. The increasing number of businesses related to serving households and SMEs while allowing for more competition should, in principle constitute an important opportunity for foreign banks but, again, their role is not clearly stated in the Plan, which raises doubts about the authorities’ intentions.

On Capital Account LiberalizationFinally, as regards the second key reform, namely capital account liberalization, the path outlined in the 5-Year Plan is even less clear on paper. However, the progress made with the internationalization of the RMB (both in terms of trade settlements in RMB and bond issuance

in RMB) concentrates on the off-shore markets and tends to forget the onshore one, which

does not seem like a sustainable model. This is why there does not seem to be any other option other than pushing for the internationalization of the

RMB market as well.

LAsT wOrd

“...the plan appears to introduce two major breakthroughs in financial reforms. The first is interest rate liberalization, which is clearly stated in the plan. The second is capital account liberalization...”

ALiCiA GArCiA HerrerO

China’s financial sector and the new 5-year plans: What are the implications?

Alicia García Herrero is the Chief Economist for Emerging Markets at Banco Bilbao Vizcaya

Argentaria (BBVA)

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