Excellence in Retail Financial Services Convention 2008 drew in 260
The event, held in Bangkok from 15-16 May 2008, showcased 30 expert speakers and riveting discussions on today’s major industry challenges
The Asian Banker’s seventh annual Excellence in Retail Financial Services Convention again gathered high-ranking regulators and senior industry practitioners for stimulating dialogue spanning a wide range of topics such as customer segmentation, wealth management and branch productivity improvement.
Dr Tarisa Watanagase, governor, Bank of Thailand, delivering the opening keynote.
Dr Tarisa Watanagase, Bank of Thailand governor, gave the opening keynote during which she discussed the growth of the retail financial services industry in Thailand, the central bank’s commitment to broadening consumer access to financial services and the challenges it faces ensuring consumer protection. Philip Strause, chairman of the Excellence in Retail Financial Services Programme and former principal at Deloitte Consulting’s financial services practice, said that the increasingly competitive retail banking landscape requires players to resort to tactical warfare to gain an edge.
Wilson Chia, regional head of Standard Chartered Bank’s Southeast Asia consumer banking division, discussed the importance of driving a bank’s regional franchise through the delivery of customer centric technology, processes, staff management and continuous learning during in the Leadership in Retail Financial Services Dialogue with Emmanuel Daniel, president and editor-in-chief of The Asian Banker.
In his closing keynote address, Dr Muliaman Hadad, Bank of Indonesia’s deputy governor, described the central bank’s efforts to promote financial inclusion by improving industry structure, regulation and supervision. He suggested that a commercially viable business model is attainable given overlapping interests among banks, the central bank and customers in achieving a more open, sustainable financial services industry.
Heads of Retail Financial Services Annual Meeting 2008
Christian Kapfer, head of The Asian Banker Excellence in Retail Financial Services Programme, said that this year’s competition revealed a growing complexity among the more than 150 retail banks surveyed in the region and demonstrated that players are paying increasingly more attention to internet banking, brand building, and customer experience to differentiate amid sharpening competition.
Edmund Koh, newly appointed president of Taiwan-based Ta Chong Bank, described during an interactive session how he reinvigorated DBS’ retail banking unit as a former managing director by pursuing offensive strategies despite the bank’s dominant local market share while stressing the importance of continuously evolving as a business to fill tactical strategy and process gaps.
In an open discussion on achieving organic growth by enhancing customer experience, Kattiya Indaravijaya, first senior vice president at Kasikornbank, shared how her bank is making inroads through a sales and marketing “opt out” option which allows customers to request that the bank not contact them about certain products and offers and also enables clients to let the bank know which channels by which they would prefer to receive information.
On proactively acquiring new consumer groups, Anil Shah, chief executive of Nabil Bank, discussed how Nepal’s largest private sector bank has come to dominate business among the country’s five million overseas workers by educating them about its integrated internet banking service platform.
Angus Ogilvy, regional director of Nielsen Financial Solutions Asia Pacific, led a discussion on brand management and growth, noting that most Asian retail banks fail to leverage brand equity as a tool to monitor, acquire and retain targeted customers. Ng Li Lian, Singapore-based OCBC Bank’s head of marketing, remarked that customers view brands differently and that experiences at channel contact points can have a big impact on customer perceptions.
The proceeding concluded with remarks on effective employee engagement from Ashok Gopal, Asia Pacific principal consultant at Gallup, who explained that banks that hire the right people, put them on the right team and develop the strengths they bring to the table rather than trying to mould them into something else are the ones that stand to get the strongest results and in turn offer a superior customer experience.
Delegates listening attentively during a session.
Conference Sessions
Imelda Trillo, head of preferred banking and senior vice president of the Bank of the Philippine Islands, stressed the importance of using information to strengthen customer relationships.
Patrick Chew, head of delivery, consumer financial services at OCBC Bank, described the bank’s branch transformation project, which has resulted in more family-friendly branches and three times more traffic.
Clifford Lawrence, senior vice president and Asia regional manager, international financial services, Wells Fargo & Company, talked about how the bank’s survey and research-based employee engagement programmes resulted in higher cross-sell rates in both the retail and wholesale banking divisions.
Dr Martin Maurer, general secretary of the Association of Foreign Banks in Switzerland, said that Asian banks seeking to build and retain confidence in their global wealth management businesses must evolve with the changing market, pointing to Swiss banks’ experience with privacy protection and “know your customer” laws.
Arup Mukhopadhyay, executive vice president and group head of retail banking at Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, described how private bank success hinges on the ability of relationship managers to provide service that accounts for differing levels of investor sophistication among client demographics and its relevance to securing critical “word of mouth” referrals.
Dr John Zuo, senior vice president of risk management at Wachovia Bank, said that a hybrid risk management approach combining key retail and corporate banking elements is essential if Asian banks are to capitalise on lucrative regional SME business amid loan size diversity and risks.
Delegates at workshop session.
Workshops
David Lindberg, vice president and head of First Manhattan Consulting Group Australia, presented on how to define and implement a unique customer proposition and highlighted winning retail banking strategies in other markets.
Paul Dowling, principal analyst at East & Partners, discussed the key dynamics influencing SMEs’ engagement with banks and other financial institutions, and the use of analytics to unlock the potential of the SME market.
Simon Lang, managing director atMass 3rm, and Jonathan Gould, managing partner at Asia-Pacific Connections, explained the key issues banks need to consider to create a strong business case for mobile phone banking.
Professor Brett King, the international chief executive officer of the American Academy of Financial Management,used video, website and mobile solutions to demonstrate different ways of developing next generation internet banking systems.
