Banks in the Asia-Pacific may be better capitalized than their Western counterparts, but navigating the different regulatory regimes and market practices across the region is challenging for companies.
ASIA-PACIFIC
Best Overall Bank for Cash Management
DBS
DBS has been rapidly expanding its treasury and cash management offering and market share in the region in recent years. The bank has embraced digital solutions and launched a number of new offerings that are tailored to specific markets in the region. For example, DBS launched enhanced online tax payment functionality on its IDEAL platform--for Indonesian clients; automated clearing house (ACH) services in Taiwan; NACH solutions in India; and an On-Demand Domestic Sweeping service in China, which allows clients to initiate multiple intraday sweeps between entities for urgent settlement. In addition, DBS PriorityPay provides instant cross-border transfers within Asia.
The bank saw its transaction services business grow significantly in 2016, and record growth is on track for the coming year, as well.
Best Bank for Liquidity Management
China Construction Bank
China Construction Bank has focused on increasing investment in digital banking solutions for enterprise clients and has invested heavily in its cash and treasury management suite. That investment is paying off, as the banks boasts increasing numbers of cash management customers—and increasing market share.
Managing liquidity in Asia is hardly a simple thing. It is a region of disparate regulatory and currency regimes, from fully- liberalized markets to very restricted ones. But digital banking solutions are being launched to increase cash visibility, which is a first step to improving liquidity management. For trapped liquidity, banks are making use of tailored solutions, such as intercompany transfers, dividend payments and interest optimization, to move liquidity.
China Construction Bank provides corporate clients with access to a wide range of solutions to deal with the complexities of the market, including interbank lending and borrowing, repos and reverse repos, and interbank deposits.
Best Bank for Payments and Collections
ICBC
ICBC online banking platform offers a “single point entry for global cash management in different currencies, languages, countries across different time zones and banks worldwide,” notes the bank.
On the payments and cash management front, the bank has been investing heavily in its solutions for global account management, collections and disbursement and liquidity solutions, such as cash pooling. One key plank is the bank’s multicurrency centralized collection and disbursement offering, which supports data flows between ICBC accounts, between accounts of ICBC and third parties—and between accounts at third parties.
Best Provider of Short-Term Investments/ Money Market Funds
JP Morgan Asset Management
With decades on the ground in key markets in this region, few banks have the deep local roots and global reach of J.P. Morgan. It offers access to a range of short-term liquidity and investing solutions covering the gamut from money market funds to short-duration funds and commercial paper, along with Treasury securities and other offerings.
J.P. Morgan’s Asset Management arm is one of the leading bank-owned providers of investment solutions to corporate clients in the region. It has global assets under management of $1.7 trillion, and the banking group has a CET1 ration of 12.4%.
Best Bank for Working Capital Optimization
Standard Chartered
Standard Chartered boasts more than 6,000 corporate clients in the Asia-Pacific region. It takes a client-specific approach to working capital optimization that stands out. The bank works closely with clients to solve working capital problems is ways that are specific to each market and company.
At the same time, Standard Chartered offers market-leading global solutions, such as working capital analytics tools to improve cash-flow forecasting. It also offers a virtual account solution for collections and payments, to centralize funds and improve intraday working capital management. And of course, the bank is perhaps best known for its wide-ranging and tailored trade and financial supply chain solutions, which are structured to help companies improve working capital efficiency.
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