Some companies have acquired cryptocurrencies for their corporate treasuries despite the volatility. MicroStrategy, the public company that holds the most bitcoin on the balance sheet, remains bullish on bitcoin.

Digital banks in Asia Pacific witnessed improving overall profitability in FY2019. Although some digital banks’ net profit in FY2020 has been affected by COVID-19 pandemic, their growth outlook remains optimistic.

The US Net International Investment Position (NIIP) has posted a deteriorating trend for over a decade now, raising concerns of the financial condition and creditworthiness of the US as a habitual debtor nation

The market for charitable giving is evolving like other forms of commerce and establishing a firm digital presence

In the Asia Pacific region, skilled and experienced tech professionalsand regulatory compliance specialists will find themselves well-positioned in the banking and financial services market

These are the leading countries where new payment options are creating new opportunities and disrupting the incumbents

Retail banking sector has been the main growth driver for Indian banking sector during the past few years, as banks’ exposure to corporate banking sector has been reduced due to bad loans problems. Their retail lending has grown at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 16.2% over the FY2013 to FY2018 period, making India's retail banking one of the biggest among emerging markets.

The Top 100 banks in consumer banking in Asia Pacific, the Middle East and Africa is the result of The Asian Banker International Excellence in Retail Financial Services Programme, the most rigorous, prestigious and transparent audit programme for consumer banking.

Crypto markets have seen recent spikes and increased volatility as more mainstream companies and speculators continue to join the digital asset trading and investment bandwagon. The impressive rise of other cryptocurrencies beside Bitcoin has dented its market dominance.

The total capitalisation of digital assets surged three-fold in 2021, with strong evidence that the momentum is likely to continue into the new year. DeFi users are expected to continue their exponential growth over the next 12 months, with more institutional investors moving into the space, combined with greater clarity over regulators’ stance in the large economies such as China and the US. What challenges and uncertainties could lie ahead to derail the upbeat outlook?

The push for climate change considerations puts pressure on financial services companies to develop and use advanced technologies such as blockchain that promises improved governance.

As the trade finance industry collectively progresses to address challenges around digital fragmentation and isolation, adoption of standard solutions and well-established legal frameworks along with technology as an enabler will play critical roles in truly digitalising trade.

The World Federation of Exchanges (WFE), a global industry group for central counterparties (CCPs) and exchanges, recently published its 7th annual sustainability survey. The survey takes into account the nature and extent of ESG involvement by WFE members.

A year after Hong Kong issued eight digital banking licences, Mox and ZA Bank have emerged as the early leaders. Together with WeLab, the three banks account for 86% of all virtual banking deposit in Hong Kong.

As demand for sustainable products rises, stakeholders including consumers, investors, and regulators are pushing manufacturers, suppliers and lenders to incorporate ESG metrics in evaluating the performance of their supply chains.

Industry practitioners discuss how process of bringing offshore global supply chains back to the country of origin accelerates demand for existing and new financing programmes that provide liquidity for sub-tier level of suppliers

Tech giants, which make up some of the world’s largest companies, are muscling into traditional banking spaces. But whether they want to crush the traditional finance players or enable them, they are learning across the globe that disrupting well-regulated banking systems is easier said than done

The inaugural BankQuality™ Consumer Survey and Rankings interviewed 11,000 bank customers in 11 markets across the Asia Pacific region on their engagement, experience and satisfaction with their main retail banks.

Several key themes emerged amidst the many discussions by global leaders in payments, including QR code, blockchain, credit card schemes, fintech and data consolidation

While the growth of Alibaba and Alipay as well as Tencent and WeChat pay in China is well known, there have been questions about whether a similar model can succeed outside of China. Local players as well as those Chinese giants themselves are starting to show that a super-app may well succeed in other markets in Asia too.

Given that remittances are so lucrative in so many markets in Asia, and that new competitors are offering faster and cheaper services, banks will need to develop new models if they want to keep their customers.

Innovation by financial technology companies (fintechs) has led to many banks opening their doors for collaborations. The strategic approaches, often multidimensional, vary from investments to building an ecosystem and technology partnership

Artificial intelligence (AI) is set to transform retail banking, impacting the customer journey from acquisition on through to retention.

The most competitive digital retail financial institutions come all but from China, and the elite club of the top 10, representing all non-bank financial players, are exclusively from China, Korea and Australia

The bank onboarding process should be fast, as the most fundamental attribute of an exceptional account opening experience is speed

Driven by competition and rapid disruption, banks increasingly spend on technology enabled models targeted to improve customer experience and service capability. What are the recent developments and top priorities of banks in 2018?

Electronic channels and bank agnostic platforms are transforming traditional trade finance functions across Asia Pacific

Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, joined the Asian Banker’s Emmanuel Daniel and Gordian Gaeta in a debate on the development of the internet, innovation in China, and what the financial industry can learn from both

Implications of new regulations and emergence of digital-only players were hot button issues discussed this year at the Asian Banker Future of Finance ‘Global Transactions Re-invented’ track

Pundits who see fintechs as the epitome of digital revolution need to pause and consider a simple fact, they may well be transitory and more dramatic changes are yet to come

Losses from cybercrime has increased sharply as ransomware incidents soar, ‘cybercrime as a service’ provides greater access and new threats emerge, forcing banks to implement multilayered and stronger technology enabled IT risk and security frameworks.

Chatbots are another example of relatively low-cost advancements in artificial intelligence adoption within the banking industry. These computer programmes are designed to conduct live chats to resolve common queries and carry out specific tasks; and they are proving to be popular among customers.

Long a bastion of personalised service by relationship managers, the wealth management sector is undergoing a transformation as clients demand better service and as digital delivery enables new models. Wealth management firms need to combine “high-tech” with “high-touch” to stay ahead.

The Internet of Things offers potential opportunities in retail and corporate banking and will fuel the rise of new types of clients in the form of smart cities and autonomous artificial intelligence driven market agents.

A renewed push to provide end-to-end supply chain financing solutions is driving trade finance across Asia Pacific.

Retail asset quality pressure will persist in the Asia Pacific region, due to slower economic growth and worse employment situations. However, the downside risk to banks’ retail asset quality will remain manageable, as regulators and banks continue their efforts to better manage credit risk.

The last four years have been considered the worst for Thai banks in retail banking. Despite a meagre income and loan growth, banks have been working hard to improve operating efficiencies, re-balance portfolios, and build digital platforms to support the country’s next phase in e-payments, internet financing and micro lending.

Economies of scale, profitability, and developing a comprehensive service proposition remain major challenges in Vietnam’s growing retail banking industry. A long-term sustainable future will depend on how banks execute a right risk-reward balance

In the quest to create financial ecosystems, banks believe they can stay relevant to a customer’s financial needs.

As data analytics becomes nearly ubiquitous in most parts of consumers’ digital lives, leading banks are providing digitised solutions that deliver the right offer at the right time, predict fraud so they can reduce risk, and boost cross-sell rates.

In retail banks around the world, robots are making their way into the back office and reducing costs by as much as 80% while increasing accuracy by up to 100%. Along with bringing lower costs and greater efficiency, they’re also creating the complexity of redeploying people who have performed routine tasks for many years.

Declining profitability from lending is forcing Japanese banks to rethink product and service strategies whilst innovative technology adoption is helping to maintain high service levels

Investments and interest in distributed ledger technology have been rising rapidly as new use cases emerge to harness its potential. The technology is nonetheless still at an early stage with many hurdles to cross, possibly five to seven years away from mainstream adoption.

The gross retail banking income for the entire region will grow by 8% by the end of 2017 after showing a year-on-year growth of 7.5% in 2016 and 10% in 2015.

Robotics, enabled by artificial intelligence and machine learning, is proving to be a game changer that can bring unique operational efficiencies to the financial services industry.

Financial institutions are starting to use APIs to create important linkages between their products and services and their customers and important third party value providers. Early movers to stand to gain mindshare of both customers and the wider application developer community.

DBS Group’s retail and wealth business has been accelerating income generation since 2013. However, the bank continues to face an uphill struggle with some of its overseas retail markets.

While many financial institutions in emerging markets are trying to strike the right balance between their physical footprints and digital presence, leading banks in mature markets are proving that digital transformation can boost profitability and efficiency.

New proofs of concepts have emerged in blockchain as the industry tackles various impediments to its successful adoption. The technology initiatives would need to be complemented with stronger collaborative efforts and interoperability for future growth.

De-risking has proved to be more than the exiting of businesses for Asia Pacific’s trade finance industry. A strategic shift is underway which might just change the nature of trade finance for years to come.

The advent of new technologies is driving rapid upgrading of national payment systems around the world that are enabled with rich data and real-time capabilities.

It is not often that a technology comes along that forces a rethink of traditional business models. Blockchain, a technology that originated from an anti-establishment alternative to fiat currencies, is fast finding applications in a myriad of financial use cases

The Asian Banker recently updated the bank profile of Vietnam Prosperity Bank Joint Stock Commercial Bank (VPBank).

The Asian Banker recently updated the bank profile of Asia Commercial Bank. The bank is focused on boosting its competitiveness in the Vietnamese market.

China Merchants Bank and China CITIC Bank are developing their credit card businesses to stimulate retail income.

Despite current economic challenges, Vietnam’s banking sector has promising longer term potential due to its relatively young and increasingly affluent population.

The contribution of consumer finance to the overall retail loans in Asia Pacific in 2015 ranged from 2% to 56%. Its share to retail loans has increased in markets like Indonesia but has declined in Hong Kong and Thailand. The growth of consumer finance per country also varied, slowing down in Taiwan and growing faster in the Philippines.

While crowdlending in Asia Pacific shows early promise, its fate will be dictated by how regulators and banks respond to the challenges they pose.

Innovations emerging from East and West African banking hubs are enabling the sector to take a lead in reaching Africa’s unbanked population but much remains to be done.

New payment options in the market are creating new opportunities, making competition fiercer, and reducing the use of cash and cheques.

State enterprises form one of the largest customer segments of Krung Thai Bank. But this does not confine the bank, as it enters the nongovernment retail deposit market driven by a mix of competitive pricing and products, process innovation, and a strong branch network.

Formal financial institutions have connected only 22% of the Indonesian population. A huge potential for the financial sector still needs to be explored, and digitised lending, which combines retail banking with financial technology, should be a future solution.

Hong Kong’s economy remains sound but the Hong Kong Monetary Authority is tamping down property loans and issuance of long-term personal loans. With the stricter regulations, the challenge for Hong Kong banks is not asset quality but pricing.

Banks are integrating new technologies into their core businesses to improve their digital banking presence and speed-to-deliver

Australian banks are moving towards increased digitalisation, leveraging technological advancements to ensure seamless customer experience in providing better retail banking products and services.

As trials move into actual implementations, global financial markets and monetary systems will be disrupted and transformed.

The mBridge pilot has tested the issuance of over $12 million in central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and payments of over $22 million on bridge. It has resolved long-standing pain points in traditional cross-border payment systems and is rooted in the roadmap for distributed ledger technology (DLT)-based infrastructure, as well as CBDC.

Chinese private banks are upgrading philanthropic planning services to cater to increased demand following the country’s ‘common prosperity’ policy

By combing various technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data, 5G, and internet of things, edge computing is a viable solution to issues such as data latency, waste of bandwidth and possible security breaches.

CaixaBank in Spain and South American bank Itau Unibanco topped this year’s inaugural Global Retail Bank Ranking

The failure of Silicon Valley, Silvergate and Signature banks was caused by asset-liability mismatches, interest rate hikes and insufficient diversification, with many other US banks set to crack

Indonesia’s Bank Central Asia, DBS Singapore, South Korea’s Toss Bank, and China’s Alipay were voted the Most Recommended Retail Bank, Most Selected Main Bank, Most Recommended Digital-only Bank and Most Recommended Platform, respectively, in the 2023 BankQuality™ Consumer Survey

Exponential leaps in artificial intelligence and its rising adoption in the financial services industry mean that some risks need to be assessed and managed along the way

Indonesians voted BCA as the Most Recommended Retail Bank, followed by blu as the Best Digital-only Bank and Dana as the Most Recommended Platform in the 2023 BankQuality™ Consumer Survey

Banks have implemented chatbots for operational efficiency and improved customer access, but new AI capabilities expose key gaps in contextual and cognitive capabilities of current bots

Consumers in India rated ICICI as the Most Recommended Retail Bank in the 2023 BankQuality™ Survey with a score of 69%, while Paytm scored 64% and rated as the Most Recommended Digital-Only Bank

Consumers in Thailand voted Kasikornbank as the Most Recommended and Most Selected Main Retail Bank in the 2023 BankQuality Survey; Siam Commercial Bank placed second while Line BK emerged as highly-rated digital-only bank

China's wealth management market has the potential to surpass $100 trillion by 2025, but it needs to overcome challenges like low asset allocation, regulatory changes, and pressure on wealth managers

The current disintermediation in payments and MSME lending marks the tip of the iceberg, and retail deposits may be the next battleground

Disintermediation by digital wallets and decentralised finance platforms is shifting deposit business dynamics, requiring conventional banks to innovate and stay competitive

The financial services market size in the metaverse is predicted to drop from 22% to 6% by 2030—its fall from tech wonder to half-baked idea in financial services requires differentiation in its value proposition to secure success

Taiwanese consumers voted E.Sun Bank as the Most Recommended Retail Bank, giving it a 13% BankQuality™ Score. CTBC Bank emerged as the Most Selected Main Bank, securing 20% of the bankable population for primary relationships

Investors’ risk appetite and fondness for fintechs have cooled, leading to a 42% drop in global funding and 57% drop in APAC funding in the first half of this year

Despite economic headwinds, banks leveraged advanced technologies and a customer-centric approaches to drive balanced growth, with customer engagement, financial inclusion, and ecosystem development emerging as key strategies

Hong Kong consumers voted Citibank as the Most Recommended Retail Bank with a BankQuality™ Score of 19%, Airstar Bank as the Most Recommended Digital-Only Bank with 12%, and Octopus as the Most Recommended Platform with 14%.

According to a TABInsights survey on technology investment, FI in APAC prioritise data management, advanced analytics and digital banking capabilities

Malaysian consumers voted Maybank as the Most Recommended Retail Bank, while Touch ’n Go emerged as the Most Recommended Platform in the latest BQS™

The shift in global supply chains is accelerating demand for new financing programmes and solutions that aim to accelerate and improve trade digitalisation processes

In a recent survey conducted by TABInsights, the research and consulting arm of TAB Global, banking professionals highlighted AI integration in finance. The top concern, with 48% support, is skill specialisation. This means leaders need to nurture AI skills across different roles, from entry-level business analysts to mid/senior data engineers and data scientists.

An altered operating environment has led treasury to reprioritise their investment and liquidity management strategy, with cash management providers offering enhanced solutions

Al Rajhi Bank in Saudi Arabia remains the leading global Islamic bank, with Middle Eastern counterparts surpassing Asian ones in scale and profitability, while Asian Islamic banks exhibit stronger asset quality

Trade finance is gradually digitalising amid evolving e-commerce models, driven by technology and sustainability; the $2.5 trillion global trade finance gap affecting SMEs prompts innovation in blockchain, tokenisation, and sustainability, despite geopolitical complexities

China’s wealth management market overcame regulatory hurdles and saw renewed investor confidence in the first half of 2023, with mutual funds surpassing the scale of bank wealth management products

China's e-commerce rebounded in 2023, with Pinduoduo's remarkable performance surpassing that of Alibaba and JD.com. Alibaba responded with the 'Year-End Good Price' festival, emphasising a 'low price strategy.'

Transaction banks in the Middle East are expanding services in non-oil businesses with high growth potential, in line with economic diversification, and to mitigate geopolitical instability in countries in the Gulf Cooperation Council

Philippine digital banks saw rapid growth in 2023 alongside mounting concerns over credit quality as gross NPL ratios soared

A prominent player in Southeast Asia’s digital finance sector, the group saw significant growth in 2023, cutting losses by 29% despite a challenging economic environment

JPMorgan Chase, China Construction Bank, and Emirates NBD claimed leading spots in this year’s ranking, with JPMorgan Chase standing out in retail financial performance and digital customer base

China’s economy grew faster than expected at the start of the year but it remains to be seen if it signals a solid recovery trend as the crisis-hit property sector bears down on growth