A recent survey of banks in South-East Asia, conducted by SunGard and IDC Financial Insights, highlighted the emergence of institution-specific business strategies as banks address their post-crisis opportunities and threats. The survey results, which were compiled from the responses of 168 banking executives from Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam, showed significant differences of focus , particularly at a country level. The survey results also outlined some of the key challenges for banks in the region.
Highlights of the survey include:
About 38% of respondents anticipate more focus on their organizations core businesses, 22% of the respondents expect to focus on areas beyond their core strengths, and 40% will attempt to strike a balance between core-focused growth and new growth.
Banks can also be differentiated by their outlook in 2010 threat-aware bank and opportunity-cognizant bank.
About 62% of banks would fall under the category of opportunity-cognizant bank. It is expected that these banks will stake out new markets, gain first-mover advantage in new business areas, or innovate in the search for new business models.
About 23% of the respondents would fall under the threat-aware bank category. To counter the many threats confronting them, these banks are looking at initiatives to improve business processes, focus on risk management to help ensure that they adequately mitigate and manage the vulnerabilities of their institutions, and concentrate on cost management.
Finally, all banks must focus on their fundamental assets staff, capital and customers. They must be able to manage their business imperatives and drive efficiencies around these three main assets.
Michael Araneta, senior consulting and research manager at IDC Insights Asia Pacific, commented, The 2010 outlook of South East Asian banks is remarkably different from bank to bank. Whether the bank is focused on core-strengths or new areas to push growth, or whether the bank is threat-aware or opportunity-cognizant, their success will depend on how well they are able to manage their core assets of customer, staff and capital and become well-managed.
D.C.