It has been an exceptionally competitive year for The Banker’s Bank of the Year Awards, making this year’s winners all the more deserving of the Bracken trophy.
The past couple of years have been tumultuous and uncertain to say the least. But the global banking industry has risen to the challenge and come through the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic stronger and more resilient. Banks have reacted quickly, changed their ways of working and how they deliver services to customers.
The global and regional awards winners
Importantly, institutions have rethought their purpose and role in society, effectively supporting the business and financial interests of their customers when needed most. It is this renewed commitment to corporate social responsibility — and to building a more sustainable and inclusive world — that has really shone through during the past 12 to 18 months.
The determination to assist customers and keep them afloat was clearly demonstrated in the hundreds of awards submissions received this year. The competition was incredibly high, as banks across the world raised their game in digital transformation, customer experience and bringing environmental, social and governance criteria to the fore. Congratulations to all the winners for their stellar performances and achievements in 2021.
Global
DBS
Even in a region with a global reputation for the greatest levels of innovation and forward-thinking banking services, DBS shines as it leads the way with fresh thinking and market-leading technology services.
The winners
DBS has taken the award for Global Bank of the Year after demonstrating how it was not simply exploring the most modern technology in banking, but is actively at the cutting-edge of its implementation, leaving other banks around the world in its wake.
Since the bank last won the global award in 2018, there have been multiple business challenges to contend with, not least the Covid-19 pandemic. But what DBS demonstrates is its unflinching dedication to providing best-in-class products and services, regardless of the obstacles that stand in its way.
Where other banks are still adapting to digitisation, DBS has developed services on the blockchain. The bank established the DBS Digital Exchange (DDEx), which allows both institutions and accredited investors to access a fully integrated tokenisation, trading and custody space for digital assets. Held as a private exchange, the system has strong governance in place, providing peace of mind to investors.
Working in collaboration with JPMorgan and Temasek, DBS developed Partior, an open platform for cross-border payments. Hosted on the blockchain, transactions can be executed immediately at any time of day. The platform has been designed to be interoperable with external blockchain networks, creating opportunities to expand into other forms of fund transfer. Working with Contour, trade finance services on the blockchain were introduced, supporting cross-border letters of credit. In addition, in partnership with AntChain, DBS has introduced a trade platform focused on supporting small and medium-sized enterprises in international trade.
Through utilising artificial intelligence (AI), the bank has created the DBS Nav Planner, providing customers with detailed insights into their financial positions. Utilising more than 100 AI models, the Nav Planner gives customers a personalised balance sheet, with a full overview of their financial position across multiple banks, covering products including savings, insurance plans and pension funds. The platform will track a customer’s financial health to advise whether they need to increase their savings or insurance coverage, and give advice on how to achieve these goals.
Further functions include Map Your Money, an interactive dashboard to simplify retirement planning, and Make Your Money Work Harder, to help customers understand investing, determine their investment profile and ensure they meet regulatory requirements. To date, more than two million customers have signed up to Nav Planner, with 400,000 of them becoming net savers.
Additionally, the bank partnered with Singapore Exchange, Standard Chartered and Temasek to establish a global exchange and marketplace for carbon credits called Climate Impact X. And, again working with Temasek, DBS launched EvolutionX Debt Capital, a $500m debt financing platform for growth-stage tech-enabled companies across Asia.
Piyush Gupta, CEO of DBS, says: “Winning Global Bank of the Year from The Banker tops off another year of outstanding global accolades for us. Throughout this challenging year, we were able to strongly support customers, employees and the wider community, while maintaining a solid financial position. Over the past 12 months, as part of our efforts to further reposition ourselves fundamentally as a bank of the future, we took stakes in banks in India and China to cement our position in Asia.”
He continues: “We also identified several big business ideas that would define the post-pandemic world – hyper-digitalisation, supply chain shifts and an increased focus on sustainability – launching several key initiatives on the back of this: digital and carbon exchanges, a blockchain payments joint venture, and our AI digital advisor Nav Planner. Looking ahead, we will continue to leverage game-changing new technologies, such as blockchain and AI, and remain at the forefront of innovation to serve our customers better.”
Western Europe
DenizBank
Turkey’s DenizBank, like few other lenders in the region, has harnessed the potential of new and emerging technologies to power its growth. Through the bank’s dedicated innovation centre, Aquarium, the lender has launched a number of initiatives including corporate start-up engagement programmes, projects focused on developing an innovation-focused culture, application programming interface (API) technologies and a blockchain lab. Notably, the Aquarium blockchain hub represents a first for the Turkish banking sector. It is focused on developing three key areas including the creation of industry-specific use cases, educating and transforming the wider organisation in the domain of decentralised finance, and to be part of the crypto economy of the future. Through Aquarium, the bank is also focused on running an accelerator programme that assists new start-ups in scaling their businesses while nurturing Turkey’s wider start-up ecosystem.
In 2021, DenizBank is also launching a NeoHUB, a new subsidiary that will drive forward both technological and business solutions. The subsidiary will operate along a number of verticals, including open (API) banking, neo-banking, continuous innovation and work on a ‘super app’. This subsidiary will feed into and enhance the bank’s existing work to adopt new solutions to meet its customers’ needs as well as to prepare for a more digitised future.
Meanwhile, the bank is currently working on its Deniz Mercan offering which is a digital shopping mall application. Customers can enjoy a commission-free shopping experience for both products and services through this offering. E-commerce businesses making use of this experience can be paid through the bank’s digital wallet, fastPay. Ultimately, the bank envisages creating an ecosystem where its consumer clients can interact with its small and medium-sized enterprise customers in a digital environment using the bank’s in-house payment channels.
For these reasons and others, DenizBank secures The Banker’s western Europe regional award in 2021. Importantly, the outlook for DenizBank remains bright. Turkey’s large and digitally-savvy population demands world-class banking products and services, and the bank will be ready to offer some of the region’s most exciting and innovative financial services solutions to its clients.
Central and Eastern Europe
OTP Group
Central and eastern Europe (CEE) has seen rapid economic growth over the past few decades. This has catapulted new markets to the forefront of the wider region’s economy, while opening up opportunities for investment and wealth creation in others. As the global political climate shifts in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, CEE is likely to benefit from new megatrends including the reshoring of manufacturing and supply chains.
The winner of the CEE regional Bank of the Year award 2021, OTP Group, is uniquely positioned to reap the benefits of these changes and help drive the next stage of the region’s development. Bold expansion across the region in recent years has contributed to a footprint across 11 markets.
“We strongly believe that the CEE region’s [economic] convergence story is set to continue, and we are fully committed to maintain our contribution to this development. Having our headquarters and entire operation in CEE, we have accumulated vast experience and in-depth knowledge of our markets. An optimal blend of local and central solutions, as well as a tailor-made mix of digital and brick-and-mortar banking services, are certainly unique and hard-to-replicate competitive advantages of OTP Group,” says László Wolf, deputy chief executive of the commercial banking division.
As a key contributor to the core financial infrastructure across the region, OTP Group has recognised its responsibilities in the realm of green finance. In 2020, under the direct oversight of the group chairman and chief executive, OTP Group established an organisational unit known as the Green Programme Directorate, tasked with nurturing green banking operations on both the asset and liability side of the bank’s activities.
In addition, OTP Group envisions an important role with respect to capacity-building, knowledge transfer and lobbying across the region. As CEE’s green finance market develops, OTP Group will be playing a significant role in pushing it forward by delivering the expertise, reach and financial firepower that is required to take it to the next level of its development.
Asia-Pacific
NMB Bank
Nepal’s NMB Bank exhibited a high level of ambition in its offering, covering so many product and service areas, that it was a clear choice for the Asia-Pacific Bank of the Year regional award.
The bank implemented services utilising artificial intelligence with the creation of its NMB Sapati small-ticket personal loans, providing automated loans to customers though the mobile app. This opened up the opportunity for automated micro, small and medium-sized enterprise (MSME) loans and auto loans, and provided a template for the development of other automated products.
With the arrival of its green loan product suite, NMB Bank became the first lender in Nepal to create a climate-focused range of services. Under the ‘Go Green’ slogan, the bank issued green loans at a discounted rate for individuals and businesses looking to own ‘green’ buildings. To ensure the long-term sustainability of these loans, the bank has signed a debt partnership agreement with the International Finance Corporation to provide credit to qualifying projects.
NMB was focused on offering support to its MSME customers through the worst impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic. Anticipating the impact that the pandemic would have on tourism and small exporters, the bank sought external funds to provide interest-free loans. Under Project Swarojgar, the bank focused on supporting the country’s south-eastern Province 2 region to create job opportunities and support for entrepreneurs to reduce the number of people leaving to seek employment elsewhere. NMB provided a week-long training programme for 50 entrepreneurs, and aims to expand the service to other parts of the country facing similar issues.
In a move to reduce the use of paper cash during the pandemic, the bank worked to introduce transport payments by card, enabling social distancing on public transport and encouraging the move towards a cashless society.
Sunil KC, CEO of NMB Bank, says: “We shall continue with our sustainable banking agenda and work as a bridge between the local players and international organisations to advocate climate change concerns, and thus enhance larger public interests and awareness. We shall continue to keep digitisation at the core of our agenda to enhance inclusiveness and create client value.
Americas
Santander
Since its founding in 1857, to facilitate trade between the Port of Santander and Latin America, Santander has maintained a longstanding commitment to the region. It has built a powerful and profitable network in key markets from Mexico to Colombia, Peru and Brazil, and Uruguay to Argentina and Chile. The region has continued to show growth as a significant source of underlaying attributable profit for the bank, rising from 40% in 2016 to 53% in 2020.
Digital innovation – the cornerstone of Santander’s strategy in recent years – has enabled initiatives such as Superdigital, a financial inclusion platform that aims to reach five million active customers by 2023. Meanwhile, its merchant-acquirer business Getnet, launched in Brazil and now operating across the region, is making inroads among underbanked small businesses and has already taken on the incumbent monopolies to become the third-largest merchant acquirer in Latin America. It processed around €90bn in payments, through four billion transactions for more than 1.1 million clients in 2020.
In Brazil, Santander has been prioritising sustainable finance principles to create new financial instruments, which has culminated in the country’s first environmental, social and governance-linked loan deal. Its Chilean subsidiary achieved a landmark year in client acquisition with the launch of its new digital current account Santander Life. Meanwhile, in Argentina, Santander is forging ahead with its plans to deploy a version of the group’s digital bank, Openbank, in its local market.
“The pandemic highlighted the importance of digitalisation,” says José Antonio Álvarez, CEO of Santander Group. “The number of transactions we process through digital channels has increased exponentially, allowing us to simplify our model and improve efficiency, while serving more customers in more ways. In the past 12 months alone, we have added five million new customers across the group.”
He continues: “As part of our strategy, we are deploying capital to our most profitable markets and we see significant opportunities for growth across our businesses in the Americas. Our focus is on increasing collaboration between countries to better serve our clients and support trade flows between markets, while leveraging technology to grow our customer base.”
Middle East
Saudi National Bank
The past year has witnessed the creation of a new Middle Eastern powerhouse lender. National Commercial Bank (NCB) – hitherto Saudi Arabia’s largest lender – sealed its merger with Samba Financial Group in April 2021, with the newly merged entity renamed as Saudi National Bank (SNB). The bank is the winner of Bank of the Year for the Middle East for 2021, in recognition of both the landmark merger and its impressive performance in a difficult economic climate.
The new bank is set to challenge regional giants Qatar National Bank and First Abu Dhabi Bank for the position of the Middle East’s largest bank by Tier 1 capital, even as it remains slightly behind its Gulf rivals in terms of assets. As a new national champion, SNB is set to reap the benefits of participation in Saudi Arabia’s ambitious Vision 2030 programme of rapid economic development, with the country looking to attract more than $100bn per year in foreign direct investment as part of a new strategy announced in October 2021.
SNB’s bright prospects should not distract from its impressive performance during 2020. Ahead of the merger’s completion, NCB led the way in Tier 1 capital growth among Saudi lenders. Even as the collapse in oil prices in the early part of the Covid-19 pandemic choked off Saudi Arabia’s largest source of revenue, the bank’s mortgage lending department continued to benefit from the country’s state-sponsored housing boom. The bank’s Tier 1 capital base increased by 16.7% in 2020, more than any other lender in the regional top 10.
The bank also made significant strides on the digital front during the year. Digital transactions accounted for 77% of total volumes in 2020, a 15% increase on 2019. Unsurprisingly given the year’s lockdowns, branch financial transactions declined further and accounted for only 1.5% of total transactions compared with 2.2% a year earlier.
Africa
United Bank for Africa
While several African banks impressed the judges this year, there was no doubt as to the worthiest recipient of the Bank of the Year for Africa: United Bank for Africa (UBA) Group, a clear winner across a wide range of criteria.
UBA has performed impressively across its footprint, with a strong financial performance across most of its markets. The bank picked up awards in 13 countries, including competitive markets such as Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire and its home market of Nigeria. The group has continued to post robust financial results into 2021, with gross earnings for the nine months to end September being 8% higher than the same period last year.
The bank’s digital transformation continued unabated during the year, with the continued rollout and take up of its relaunched UBA Mobile and Redd apps, together with its Leo chatbot and UBA Connect services. These were complemented by innovative services in individual markets, such as the low-income UBA Sharp-Sharp account service offered in Sierra Leone, which can be opened with a deposit of just 10,000 leones ($0.91).
UBA has also played its part in combating the spread of Covid-19 with a series of donations to national governments’ healthcare initiatives, in addition to measures designed to cushion the financial impact of the pandemic on its customer base.
“We are Africa’s global bank with presence in 20 African countries, as well as in the US, UK and France,” says UBA’s group managing director and CEO, Kennedy Uzoka.
“We are presently consolidating our [business] across our African subsidiaries by strengthening payments and cross-border trade solutions on the African continent. We are also primed to take advantage of any opportunities to continue to spread our footprint globally and on continents in which we do not presently operate,” he adds.
Financial inclusion
Grupo Financiero Ficohsa
Headquartered in Honduras, Grupo Financiero Ficohsa now operates across several Central American countries, having gained a foothold in Panama, Guatemala and Nicaragua, either by setting up credit card businesses or acquiring operations of international businesses. Local groups creating regional networks is also worth noting, but arguably of even greater impact for the local economies are its financial inclusion initiatives.
With its De Mi Tierra programme, for example, the lender helps small agribusinesses access finance. Ficohsa created it in partnership with Central American retail chain La Colonia Supermarkets and with the Foundation for Rural Business Development ‘Funder’, a Honduran not-for-profit that aims to improve the living conditions in rural areas by supporting environmentally sustainable entrepreneurship.
So far, Ficohsa says, the programme has invested the equivalent of $5.6m and worked with more than 850 agricultural producers and 40 products. The programme is as simple as it is effective: La Colonia estimates its purchasing needs; Funder works out crop requirements and creates a budget for the producers involved; and then Ficohsa extends credit based on this information. Rural producers receive technical assistance and financing, and establish a relationship with a key buyer.
“The De Mi Tierra trust’s purpose is to promote continuous improvement for small vegetable producers, most of whom do not have real guarantees or access to formal banking,” says Omar Meza, trust manager at Grupo Financiero Ficohsa. “It provides financing and technical training in sustainable production, creates new opportunities to market vegetable products to final consumers, and allows them to grow production in the long term.”
De Mi Tierra is an initiative that can easily be replicated across Ficohsa’s other markets — as is the group’s campaign supporting locally produced products, Hecho en Casa (homemade in Spanish), which during the pandemic served as a boost to local entrepreneurship and showed a possible alternative source of income. Of note is also Ficohsa’s financing of preschool education to improve reach and quality of education for young children in rural and vulnerable areas of Honduras.
Banking in the community
Intesa Sanpaolo Bank Albania
In banking, financial education has always been paramount – the correct understanding and representation of financial products is the basis of any solid financial system. The subject, however, has seldom received any centre-stage attention from financial institutions or even from policy-makers or international organisations. This is now beginning to change.
At a global level, there are initiatives such as research into definitions and measurements around financial health, thanks to the work of the UN Secretary General’s Special Advocate for Inclusive Finance, Queen Máxima of the Netherlands. A report on the initial findings and recommendations was released earlier this year, but there are also growing local initiatives, often led by the private sector. Intesa Sanpaolo Bank Albania’s work for the financial education of children is one such example. The initiative stems from the banking group’s ‘art of saving’ series at its Italian headquarters and is hosted by the Museum of Saving, a multimedia laboratory based in Turin.
In Albania, the initiative received the support of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports. Before the pandemic, according to the bank, it involved visits to 460 schools, involving 1300 children, to help students create simple financial plans trough group games. Activities centred on the concept of saving and managing expenses, but also learning about the circular economy and recycling. During the pandemic, video tutorials crafted for different age groups replaced in-person lessons and kept momentum going during a challenging time.
The bank also showed commitment to working with women, both in terms of supporting their wellbeing (by joining a UN campaign against gender-based violence and launching a breast cancer awareness programme), but also in terms of supporting the financial wellbeing of female entrepreneurs, through a loan product for women-led businesses. Of note is also the high presence of women in senior position at the bank, who occupy 75% of roles reporting directly to the CEO, says Intesa Sanpaolo.
“Addressing community needs became a worldwide priority in 2021, so [The Banker’s] recognition is a source of great honour for our bank and our people,” says Intesa Sanpaolo Bank Albania’s CEO, Alessandro D’Oria. “We have proactively looked at how to continue our work for the financial education of children and to support women with financing tools, even during these unprecedented times, once more affirming our shared responsibility, as a bank, to the country.”
