Dear Executive,

As the rest of this agenda brochure will indicate to you, it is going to be a very busy time of learning at The Asian Banker Summit 2004. This year, we are also pleased to welcome the partnership of The Asian Wall Street Journal and Far Eastern Economic Review, which underscores the increasing importance of Financial Services industry in this region.

As you finalise your registration for the Summit, to be held in Hong Kong from 5-7 May, I want to bear some thoughts as to the meaning of sustainable growth models in the areas that you are responsible for.

This year we have chosen to develop a very rich program that is designed to benefit tremendously executives from each of the following key areas:

• Risk management. We will focus on what banks need to do to build core competencies that should really exceed Basel II considerations and make risk a basic business tool in the enterprise.
  
  
• Payments. Such a fundamental function of the bank, but one where the profit proposition is often overlooked. We want to spend time reconsidering where the money is in payment in the context of many challenges from KYC to competition from non-banks.
  
  
• Corporate Lending. We know now that banks have to be considerably creative in combining product, advice and price in succeeding in the corporate lending business. We will examine everything that the industry has learnt in strengthening the lending business, from asset securitization to credit derivatives and new internal risk models to bring discipline to the process.
  
  
• Technology. As always, technology is the soft underbelly of the institution. This year, in formulating the annual technology evaluation panel forum, we bring together the leading decision makers from the banks to verbalize their assessment of new technologies and business models, such as outsourcing, being introduced in the marketplace.

Notwithstanding the background of improved economic conditions, we are now properly in a new social, economic and even technological order that is fundamentally different from that which existed in the 1990s. This requires new thinking and new paradigms.

You will see in this brochure that the learning at the Summit will be carried out through several formats to facilitate learning and in-depth discussion of the issues. This includes panel forums to workshops and briefings to the CEO Advisory Forum.

As we interact with the industry in a more consultative basis, needless to say, it is your attendance and active participation at The Asian Banker Summit that will validate it as the foremost gathering of senior professionals in the industry for this region.

I look forward to welcoming you in Hong Kong shortly.

Yours very truly,

Emmanuel Daniel
Founder