[ S U R V E Y | A G E N T B A N K S I N F R O N T I E R M A R K E T S ]
A record number of respondents participated in this year’ s Agent Banks in Frontier Markets survey, reflecting an impressive 10 % increase from last year. This was further complemented by a record number of providers partaking. It should be noted that, unlike in other Global Custodian Agent Banks surveys, this year’ s Frontier Markets iteration is unweighted. Taking a look at the country averages this year, three countries have been rated as Very Good by our respondents. Bulgaria receives the highest score at 6.26, followed by Bahrain( 6.09) and once again, Cyprus( 6.03)- also been rated as Very Good. In fact, nearly all remaining countries sit within the Good range, with the exceptions of Nigeria( 4.86) and Botswana( 4.59). When looking at the global spread of opinion, 25 % of our respondents rate the providers as Excellent, with a further 50 % rating them as Very Good and Good. While reviewing the category specific data, as expected, Client Service and Relationship Management( 5.96) receives the highest score- a trend which continues throughout the report. Now, when looking at the annual shifts in data, this is where it gets a bit more interesting. As can be seen in Table 3, Asset Safety( 5.81) is the only category which has seen an uptick in rating over the last 12 months. The remaining six categories- excluding Technology, which we’ ll come to shortly- have all seen a slight downward shift in ratings, though no decline exceeds 12 basis points. The exception here is when it comes to Technology. Throughout this report you will notice that Technology has seen notable declines. There may be several reasons why this has happened. One potential reason could be the fast-moving nature of technology and the continuous battle providers face in trying to stay at the forefront of innovation. When reviewing client feedback, there appears to be more of a focus on cybersecurity measures and improvements to user interfaces emerging in the comments. Some quantitative responses suggest otherwise, with one client commenting that their provider’ s“ technology upgrade has been excellent”. When looking at client preferences, respondents rank Technology as seventh out of eight in terms of importance. Unsurprisingly, Client Service and
CLIENT SERVICE SHINES AS TECHNOLOGY TAKES A STEP BACK
The fundamentals of agent banks’ service provision are holding strong, but technology sees a drop in scores and in clients’ priority, provoking both questions and answers in this year’ s Frontier Markets survey.
2025 2024 Difference Account Management 5.72 5.78-0.06 Asset Safety 5.81 5.79 0.02 Asset Servicing 5.75 5.79-0.04 Cash Management and FX 5.46 5.58-0.12 Client Service and Relationship Management 5.96 6.00-0.04 Pricing 4.79 4.85-0.06 Technology 5.08 5.49-0.41 Average 5.51 5.61-0.10
52 Global Custodian Spring 2025