[ S U R V E Y
Table 2: Overall scores by market
Market
Average
score Average
Score
2018
Difference
Albania 6.52 n/a n/a
Bosnia & Herzegovina 6.52 5.32 1.20
Bulgaria 6.49 5.48 1.01
Cyprus 6.33 5.70 0.63
Ivory Coast 6.00 4.75 1.25
Lebanon 5.93 4.72 1.21
Kuwait 5.82 5.48 0.34
Ukraine 5.81 4.98 0.83
Bahrain 5.66 5.21 0.45
Panama 5.46 n/a n/a
Kazakhstan 5.33 4.66 0.67
Vietnam 5.30 5.64 -0.34
Estonia 5.29 5.31 -0.02
Latvia 5.29 5.07 0.22
Lithuania 5.17 5.40 -0.23
Bangladesh 5.16 4.92 0.24
Jordan 5.13 5.37 -0.24
Oman 5.13 5.28 -0.15
Ghana 5.12 4.81 0.31
Romania 5.11 5.54 -0.43
Sri Lanka 5.11 5.39 -0.28
Serbia 5.09 5.73 -0.64
Nigeria 5.08 4.86 0.22
Croatia 5.06 5.30 -0.24
Botswana 4.99 4.96 0.03
Slovak Republic 4.91 5.32 -0.41
Morocco 4.90 5.06 -0.16
Mauritius 4.89 5.16 -0.27
Zambia 4.88 4.66 0.22
Kenya 4.80 5.14 -0.34
Slovenia 4.55 5.33 -0.78
Argentina 4.33 5.07 -0.74
Zimbabwe 4.33 4.80 -0.47
Iceland 4.26 4.85 -0.59
Venezuela 4.08 n/a n/a
have played a role, five markets have recorded
average scores above 6.00, outperforming many
of their larger peers from a client perception
perspective. One possible explanation is that
lower volumes allow for a more personalised
service. It will be interesting to see whether,
as these markets grow, they retain the positive
ratings achieved this year.
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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 ]
METHODOLOGY
In 2018 respondents were asked to rate their providers on the basis of just
six categories, covering Settlement, Asset Servicing and Safety, Relationship
Management and Client Service, Technology, Ancillary Services and Value
Delivered.
In 2019, by contrast, users of agent banks in frontier markets were invited to
complete the full 83-question questionnaire common to all three agent bank
surveys. This asked 75 questions across Account Management (6), Asset Safe-
ty (6), Asset Servicing (10), Cash Management and FX (5) Client Service (4),
Innovation (5), Liquidity Management (4), Risk Management (9), Liquidity
Management (4), Pricing (9), Regulation and Compliance (7), Innovation (5),
Asset Servicing (12), Pricing (10), Technology (7) and Cash Management and FX
(11). It also provided space within each service area for respondents to make
written comments about their service providers.
The questionnaire did allow respondents to skip any question or service area
in its entirety or rate an entire service area by answering a single question.
This made it possible to assess a provider in all 12 service areas by answering
just 12 questions. In addition, the 2019 questionnaire allowed respondents
to divide the providers they wished to rate into two groups: those they wish
to assess country-by-country and those they wish to assess as a group. The
intention was to give respondents the maximum degree of flexibility in how
they completed the questionnaire.
The format as well as the length of the questionnaire was also changed
by comparison with 2018. Respondents were asked not to score their agent
banks directly on particular aspects of a service area, but to agree or disagree
with a series of propositions about a service area. The extent to which a re-
spondent agreed or disagreed with a proposition ranged from Strongly Agree
to Strongly Disagree on scale of 20 points. For publication, however, results
were converted to the 7-point scale (where 1=unacceptable and 7=excellent)
familiar to readers of Global Custodian. This matched the methodology used
in the ABMM and ABEM surveys.
The publication of the ABFM surveys also marks the end of the first annual
survey cycle in which the magazine has worked with AON McLagan invest-
ment Services (McLagan) to create, distribute, collate and analyse all the
surveys published in the magazine. Global Custodian has now worked with
McLagan on all of the surveys it publishes. This has enabled the surveys to
proceed on the basis of a fully refreshed survey platform, and to ensure that
all of the data collected in the surveys remains fully compliant with the data
privacy provisions of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) of the
European Union (EU), which came into force in May 2018.
The ABFM survey was conducted between November 2018 and February
2019. Its goal is to assess the quality of services as judged by cross-border
responses only (in which a respondent in one country is assessing an agent
bank in another country) rather than including domestic responses (in which
a respondent in one country is assessing a respondent in the same country)
or affiliated responses (in which the respondent is linked to the agent bank
being assessed by ownership, joint venture or other form of partnership or
alliance). Of the 592 responses received, 65 failed the validation process and
37 were excluded as domestic, leaving 493 responses for the final survey
calculations.
We remain mindful of the time and effort required to complete a lengthy
questionnaire and take this opportunity to thank the clients of the agent
banks that took the time and trouble to do so.
Spring 2019
globalcustodian.com
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