With HSBC restructuring consumer banking in the AP region, can StanChart maintain its better growth story?
Standard Chartered Bank’s consumer banking business in China continues to pile up losses while HSBC has lost close to half a billion dollars since 2008 in the Indian market. August 15, 2012 | ResearchPre-crisis, international banks operated on a blanket approach, offering retail financial services everywhere in Asia, from Bangladesh to New Zealand. Today, most of them no longer support loss- making country operations at any cost, particularly in smaller retail financial services markets or those where the bank lacks operations of scale. With lesser capital at hand globally and the cost of regulations spiralling, Peter Wong, chief executive of HSBC in Asia, pulled the plug earlier in the year to focus on six core Asian markets outside of Hong Kong which are producing the fastest profits growth, and two strategic markets that will be important to rein in operating expenses and inject capital into its European business in the future. HSBC will also (partially) exit mature markets such as Japan, Korea and Thailand whereby scalability was difficult to achieve. However, the bank will retain a full presence in Vietnam which it considers as a strategic bet against the future. From having retail operations in an initial 19 markets, HSBC will trim this number down to 12 by 2015. Citibank, which has strong branded franchises in Indonesia, India and Thailand, has grown into a specialised niche bank in retail financial services, focusing on wealth management, unsecured lending and cards business. The bank, which operates in 19 markets across the Asia Pacific region, has made $5.4 billion of retail profit from its operations in Asia Pacific between 2009 and 2011. In China, Citibank stands as the only international bank that has an independent credit card license nationwide. Standard Chartered Bank (SCB), on the other hand, is spread across 11 markets in the Asia Pacific region, including China, Indonesia, Malaysia and Taiwan. Income is diversified across both businesses, with all major markets except India, Taiwan, China and Brunei delivering positive results in retail banking in 2011. It generated $3.4 billion in retail profits between 2009 and 2011 Please login to read the complete article. If you already have an account, you can login now or subscribe/register.
Categories: Asia Pacific, Asian Banker 500, Retail Banking, Singaporeasia pac,Asian Banker 500,retail,Singapore, Asia Pacific,Asian Banker 500,Retail Banking,Singapore, Keywords:SCB, Steve Bertamini, HSBC, Citibank SCB, Steve Bertamini, HSBC, Citibank
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