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A G E N T
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Philippines
Deutsche Bank AG Manila Branch
The German bank has a large presence in Manila, including
equity and fixed income issuance and trading operations,
as well as securities services. Users of its local custody and
clearing services like most of what they are offered. As in
2017, they would like to pay less in ad valorem and transac-
tion fees, but also think Deutsche could be more creative in
finding ways for them to reduce costs beyond adjustments to
the price schedule.
In 2018, they have added to that a degree of dissatisfaction
with the spreads they are paying on cash and FX. But the scores
for client service and relationship management are almost as
high as the stellar levels achieved last year, and only the trickier
aspects of asset servicing can dent respondent enthusiasm for
the quality of the core products.
Standard Chartered Bank
A solid rather than spectacular performance by SCB Manila
sees consistent scoring across almost every service area marred
by a couple of sub-par averages. Clients do think SCB inflicts
too much paperwork on them, and they have noticed the bank
shares the industry-wide shortcomings in corporate actions,
proxy voting and tax reclaims.
Nor does SCB escape the survey-wide censure of custodians in
cash and FX. But the details show that clients are less bothered
about spreads than the lack of efficiency at those points where
the bank meets their own back office. The same is true of fees.
Clients would like to pay less – as they indicated in 2017 – but
they also think more meaningful savings can come from cutting
costs rather than prices.
HSBC
This is not a vintage year for HSBC Manila. Average scores
rarely clear the local benchmarks, let alone the global ones, and
the overall outcome is down on 2017. The less satisfactory areas
then – notably value and technology – have not improved this
year, and perceptions of the quality of the relationship are not
as reassuring as they ought to be. That said, no respondent is
worrying that trades will not settle or that assets will go missing
or planning to move their business elsewhere. The mythical
average client would just like to fill in less forms, be told more
about what is happening to their assets and pay a bit less in fees
and spreads.
Citi
It is a pity the largest foreign bank in the Philippines did not
attract more responses this year, because those clients that did
assess the direct custody and clearing services provided by Citi
Manila are much more impressed than their counterparts of a
year ago. Then, only the traditional Citi strengths in settlement,
technology and reporting were visible. This year the bank
is attracting good reviews for client service and relationship
management, which was an issue in 2017. Citi is even – and this
is a rare accolade for any bank in any market in any part of this
survey – judged to be offering good value.
WEIGHTED AVERAGE SCORES
Standard Chartered Deutsche Bank
HSBC
Citi
Market Average Global Average
Share of validated responses (%) 35% 26% 32% 6% Relationship management 5.36 5.27 4.80 n/a 5.19 5.30
Client service 5.58 5.69 4.90 n/a 5.47 5.56
Account management 5.14 4.86 4.71 n/a 4.92 5.14
Asset safety 4.88 4.29 4.28 n/a 4.54 4.60
Risk management 5.36 5.74 5.32 n/a 5.46 5.50
Liquidity management 5.11 4.65 4.50 n/a 4.81 5.14
Regulation and compliance 4.82 5.18 5.27 n/a 5.02 4.84
Innovation 4.80 4.10 4.48 n/a 4.55 4.75
Asset servicing 5.59 5.39 5.91 n/a 5.61 5.52
Pricing 5.03 5.53 4.77 n/a 5.08 5.28
Technology 5.18 5.24 5.28 n/a 5.22 5.41
Cash management and FX 5.14 5.67 5.35 n/a 5.29 5.42
Total 5.17 5.11 4.93 n/a 5.09 5.23
76
Global Custodian
Winter 2018