Global Banking & Finance Review - Business and Financial Magazine - Magazines from GBAF

Issue 6
Celebrating 96 Years
of Strong Partnerships
Mr. Ricardo R. Chua, President and CEO,
China Banking Corporation
Health Insurance in
Saudi Arabia
Mr. Tal Hisham Nazer, CEO, Bupa Arabia
Banking in The Gambia
UK £50.00
USA $62.00
EUR €55.5
CAN $82.00
AED 227.50
Mr. Bolaji Ayodele CEO and Managing
Director, Guaranty Trust Bank (Gambia) Ltd
Americas | Middle East | Asia | Africa | Europe
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Wanda Rich
Editor
FROM THE
editor
I am pleased to present to you Issue 6 of
Global Banking & Finance Review. For
those of you that are reading us for the
first time, welcome.
In this edition we are pleased to present the 2016 Global Banking & Finance Review
Award Winners. You will also find engaging interviews with leaders from the financial
community and insightful commentary from industry experts.
Featured on the front cover is Mr. Ricardo R. Chua, President and CEO of China
Banking Corporation. Founded in 1920 by entrepreneurs, China Banking Corporation
is celebrating 96 years of strong partnerships. We spoke with Mr. Ricardo R. Chua
about the current business and banking environment in the Philippines.
For over 5 years, we have enjoyed bringing the latest activity from within the global
financial community to our online and now offline readership. We strive to capture
the breaking news about the world’s economy, financial events, and banking game
changers from prominent leaders in the industry and public viewpoints with an
intention to serve a holistic outlook. We have gone that extra mile to ensure we give
you the best from the world of finance.
Send us your thoughts on how we can continue to improve and what you’d like to see
in the future.
Happy reading!
Stay caught up on the latest news and trends taking place. Read us online at
http://www.globalbankingandfinance.com/
®
Issue 6 | 3

CONTENTS
12
76
Global Business
with Business
Bank Group
Three Things Banks Can Learn
from Pokemon Go
82
84
Digital Banking in Chile
118
Customer
Engagement in
Retail Banking
inside...
BANKING
14
18
New Decision Management
Technologies Help Mid-Tier and
Smaller Banks Overcome Big
Data Challenges
Ashoke Dutt, CEO , Semantify
FRTB – Why Banks Must Act Now
Christopher Burke, CEO, Brickendon
Consulting
12
25
BUSINESS
124
128
How can CFOs stop the exodus of
young talent?
Thack Brown, Global Head of Line of
Business Finance at SAP
How to ‘keep calm and carry on’
during an M&A
Nick Pointon, Head of M&A at SQS
How to keep pace with the
changing global manufacturing
landscape
Stuart Hall, Sales Director for Epicor
Software, UK and Ireland
The Subscription Economy – a new way
to travel
Dr Steve Cassidy, Managing Director,
Viaqqio, part of ESP Group
31
42
FINANCE
104
108
Risk-based approach to KYC
Neil Jeans, Head of Policy & Regulation –
Thomson Reuters Org ID
Microfinance Movement: Time for a
Revolution?
Steve Polsky, Founder and CEO, Juvo
Lessons from retail marketing for the
financial services industry
Customer data attitudes and
postures: Breaking down siloes for a
better view
Chiara Pensato, Director - EMEA, Alteryx Inc.
Innovation is opening the door to a
real future of financial inclusion
Marija Zivanovic-Smith, Vice President of
Corporate Marketing, Communications and
Public Affairs, NCR Corporation
4 | Issue 6

AMERICAS TECHNOLOGY
36 Health Insurance in Saudi Arabia
28
Understanding the
next generation of
software robotics
78 LOCATION INTELLIGENCE 64
Leasing in Mexico
INVESTMENT
91
8
21
Sydney Stock Exchange wins Most
Innovative Exchange
Sydney Stock Exchange Mr. George Wang,
Deputy Chairman and Non-Executive
Director, Sydney Stock Exchange CEO, Mr.
Tony Sacre and APX Settlement CEO Mr.
David Lawrence
TECHONOLOGY
Will 2017 be the year of data
literacy?
Dan Sommer, Senior Director, Qlik
Seven logical steps to secure
today’s Industrial Control Systems
Sameer Dixit, Senior Director Security
Consulting, Spirent Communications
40
44
70
143
TECHONOLOGY
Five factors behind digital
transformation success
Roberto Mircoli, Senior Director Enterprise
Marketing – EMEA, Dell EMC
The Power of Graph
Wobi Plugs Into The Power Of Graph For
Insurance Price Comparison
Emil Eifrem, CEO, Neo Technology
Denial. Resistance. Adaptation
The Three Phases of SSH Key
Management
Matthew McKenna, Chief Strategy Officer,
SSH Communications Security
What’s Next for Blockchain:
Disruptive Technology and New
Regulations
Penny Sanders, Head of Financial Services
Regulation, Gowling WLG
102
124
INSURANCE
Understanding the value of cyber
insurance
Darren Anstee, Chief Security Technologist
at Arbor Networks
Cyber Insurance: Protecting the
Financial Industry
Dan Trueman, Unit Head of Cyber with
Novae at Lloyd’s
Issue 6 | 5

CONTENTS
62
CELEBRATING 96 YEARS OF STRONG
PARTNERSHIPS
interviews...
CELEBRATING 96 YEARS OF
STRONG PARTNERSHIPS 62
Ricardo R. Chua, President and CEO, China Banking
Corporation
(Founded in 1920 by entrepreneurs, China Banking
Corporation is celebrating 96 years of strong
partnerships. Global Banking & Finance Review
spoke with Ricardo R. Chua, President and CEO
of China Banking Corporation about the key to
successful corporate governance, the current
business and banking environment in the Philippines
and China Bank’s future strategy.
BANKING IN THE GAMBIA 96
Mr. Bolaji Ayodele CEO and Managing Director,
Guaranty Trust Bank (Gambia) Ltd
( Mr. Bolaji Ayodele CEO and Managing Director of
Guaranty Trust Bank (Gambia) Ltd spoke with Global
Banking & Finance Review about the banking industry
in The Gambia and the role of Guaranty Trust Bank
(G) Ltd.)
DIGITAL BANKING IN
ANGOLA 112
CURRENT BANKING TRENDS
IN MACEDONIA 132
Mr. Vladimir Eftimoski, CEO of Stopanska banka
a.d. Bitola
Global Banking & Finance Review spoke with Mr.
Vladimir Eftimoski, CEO of Stopanska banka a.d.
Bitola to find out the current banking trends in
Macedonia.
Eduardo Pinto, COO of Banco Económico
(Eduardo Pinto, COO of Banco Económico has
been working in financial services for 23 years. He
joined Banco Económico three years ago as COO,
to lead its digital transformation. )
6 | Issue 6

98 Redefining
the ease
of banking
CONTENTS
96
DIGITAL BANKING IN
BANKING IN THE GAMBIA ANGOLA 112
132
CURRENT BANKING TRENDS IN
MACEDONIA
Issue 6 | 7

Americas
8 Issue 6

AMERICAS TECHNOLOGY
Will 2017 be
the year of data literacy?
Over the past twelve months we’ve seen an
explosion of data, an increase in processing it
and a move towards information activism. This
means the number of employees actively able
to work with – and master – the huge amounts
of information available, such as data scientists,
application developers, and business analysts,
have become a valuable entity.
Unfortunately, however, there still aren’t enough
people with the expertise to handle the everincreasing,
vast levels of data and computing.
You would assume, with all the information
currently being produced and held by businesses,
that 2017 would see us in a new digital era of
facts. But, without the right number of specialists
to consume and analyse it, there’s a gap in
resources. Data is, unfortunately, growing faster
than our ability to make use of it.
For many business leaders then, this means a
reliance on gut instinct to make even the most
important decisions. Unable to hone in on the
most important insights, they’re presented
with multiple – and sometimes conflicting –
data points, so the most important ones seem
unreliable.
The situation needs to change. Yes, that will
mean upskilling more data scientists in 2017,
but there will be a greater focus on empowering
more people more broadly. That will go beyond
information activists and towards providing more
people with the tools and training to increase data
literacy. Just as reading and writing skills needed
to move beyond scholars 100 years ago, data
literacy will become one of the most important
business skills for any member of staff.
So, what will change to see culture-wide data
literacy become a reality? Here are my predictions:
1. Combinations of data – Big data will
become less about size and more about
combinations. With more fragmentation of
data and most of it created externally in the
cloud, there will be a cost impact to hoarding
data without a clear purpose. That means we’ll
move towards a model where businesses have
to quickly combine their big data with small
data so they can gain insights and context
to get value from it as quickly as possible.
Combining data will also shine a light on
false information more easily, improving data
accuracy as well as understanding.
Issue 6 | 9

AMERICAS TECHNOLOGY
2. Hybrid thinking – In 2017, hybrid cloud and multi-platform will
emerge as the primary model for data analytics. Because of
where data is generated, ease of getting started, and its ability
to scale, we’re now seeing an accelerated move to cloud. But
one cloud is not enough, because the data and workloads won’t
be in one platform. In addition, data gravity also means that on
premise has long staying power. Hybrid and multi-environment
will emerge as the dominant model, meaning workloads and
publishing will happen across cloud and on-premise.
3. Self-service for all – Freemium is the new normal, so 2017
will be the year users have easier access to their analytics.
More and more data visualization tools are available at low
cost, or even for free, so some form of analytics will become
accessible across the workforce. With more people beginning
their analytics journey, data literacy rates will naturally increase
— more people will know what they’re looking at and what it
means for their organisation. That means information activism
will rise too.
4. Scale-up – Much a result of its own success, user-driven data
discovery from two years ago has become today’s enterprisewide
BI. In 2017, this will evolve to replace archaic reportingfirst
platforms. As modern BI becomes the new reference
architecture, it will open more self-service data analysis to
more people. It also puts different requirements on the back
end for scale, performance, governance, and security.
5. Advancing analytics – In 2017, the focus will shift from
“advanced analytics” to “advancing analytics.” Advanced
analytics is critical, but the creation of the models, as well as
the governance and curation of them, is dependent on highlyskilled
experts. However, many more should be able to benefit
from those models once they are created, meaning that they
can be brought into self-service tools. In addition, analytics
can be advanced by increased intelligence being embedded
into software, removing complexity and chaperoning insights.
But the analytical journey shouldn’t be a black box or too
prescriptive. There is a lot of hype around “artificial intelligence,”
10 | Issue 6

AMERICAS TECHNOLOGY
but it will often serve best as an augmentation rather than
replacement of human analysis because it’s equally important
to keep asking the right questions as it is to provide the
answers.
6. Visualization as a concept will move from analysis-only to the
whole information supply chain – Visualization will become a
strong component in unified hubs that take a visual approach
to information asset management, as well as visual self-service
data preparation, underpinning the actual visual analysis.
Furthermore, progress will be made in having visualization as
a means to communicate our findings. The net effect of this
is increased numbers of users doing more in the data supply
chain.
7. Focus will shift to custom analytic apps and analytics in the
app – Everyone won’t — and cannot be —both a producer and a
consumer of apps. But they should be able to explore their own
data. Data literacy will therefore benefit from analytics meeting
people where they are, with applications developed to support
them in their own context and situation, as well as the analytics
tools we use when setting out to do some data analysis. As
such, open, extensible tools that can be easily customised and
contextualised by application and web developers will make
further headway.
These trends lay the foundation for increased levels of not just
information activism, but also data literacy. After all, new platforms
and technologies that can catch “the other half” (i.e., less skilled
information workers and operational workers on the go) will help
usher us into an era where the right data becomes connected with
people and their ideas — that’s going to close the chasm between
the levels of data we have available and our ability to garner insights
from it. Which, let’s face it, is what we need to put us on the path
toward a more enlightened, information-driven, and fact-based era.
Dan Sommer
Senior Director
Qlik
Issue 6 | 11

AMERICAS BUSINESS
How can CFOs Stop
The Exodus of Young Talent?
Many of the CFOs I meet are worried and
disheartened about the exodus of young
millennials from the profession – and
for good reason. These talented young
professionals have both the skills and
the desire to spearhead finance’s
needed evolution from
looking at yesterday
to planning for
tomorrow.
This outflow of talent is a lose/lose
situation. Those leaving lose the opportunity
to advance in a profession that holds great
promise, and corporations lose both the
talent and the costly investment they have
made in hiring them.
It’s nothing new for early-career finance
talent to abandon the profession. I speak
from personal experience. My career began
with 18 to 20 months of management
training, rotating through international
assignments throughout a Fortune 500
company. It was fun and exciting. Then we
newcomers settled into our actual roles:
tedious transactional accounting work.
Within a year, only about 10 of us
were left from the original 36
who started. Most migrated
out of finance to other
professions.
12 | Issue 6

AMERICAS BUSINESS
The young people I meet today are highly
motivated; they want to have an impact. But
they are stuck with correcting accounting
problems and data gathering instead of
learning the skills they’ll need to solve future
problems. The churn rate is 15 to 20%.
Capitalizing on youthful enthusiasm
The reality is that we can eliminate that
wasted, useless work through automation:
business networks for procurement,
machine learning, software that supports
financial close, and so on. At SAP, we have
seen exactly that as we have shifted that
talent to doing things that can help the
business change – working on new billing
structures and more complex contracts, for
instance.
Here’s an example. When I was the SAP
CFO in Latin America several years ago,
we had a number of young professionals
under the age of 30, and wanted to keep
them engaged. We made transparent the
difference between management reports
and statutory reporting, and had them work
on analyzing how decisions that helped the
management books could actually have
negative effects on statutory results and
cash flow.
The results were incredible: tens of millions
of dollars in cash flow improvement,
favorable tax impacts, and balance sheet
cleanups. I was so impressed: they did this
on their own time, working crazy long hours
and making personal sacrifices. And they
were so incredibly proud that they could
show business leaders how the finance
team was adding value.
Rethinking our own paradigm
But I think CFOs are starting to better
understand the frustration of young people
in the field, whose expectations are dashed
as they are sentenced to years of mindnumbing
work before being given a chance
to make a meaningful contribution. At a
recent meeting, I heard CFOs expressing
the importance of changing their own
mindset if they are going to stop the
hemorrhaging of talent. They are beginning
to understand the need to abandon the
“rite of induction” mentality, that the way
you learn is through painful, mind-numbing
account reconciliation work – and whoever
can take the most pain for the longest time
survives. Creating opportunities for young
professionals has to start early.
And we need take another look at how
we educate them. It’s essential to ensure
that finance professsionalis develop a firm
grasp of the cornerstones of the profession
– accounting rules, balance sheets, cash
flows, and P&L – while helping them focus
their skills where they are most needed in an
increasingly complex business environment.
Thack Brown
General Manager,
Global Head of Line of Business Finance
SAP
Issue 6 | 13

AMERICAS BANKING
New Decision Management
Technologies Help Mid-Tier
and Smaller Banks Overcome
Big Data Challenges
14 | Issue 6
Banks have always had to manage large
amounts of critical data. Yet, in spite of the
buzz around the value of “big data”, most
frontline employees in mid-tier and smaller
banks still lack direct access to timely and
relevant data insights.
Traditionally, data analytics has been seen as
a back-office function that utilizes expensive,
complex business intelligence solutions and
requires a level of IT support often out of reach
for smaller institutions. But not anymore.
Thanks to innovative, new “decision
management technologies”, smaller banks
without large IT staffs can transform how their
less tech-savvy employees work with data
and get the same kinds of actionable insights
as larger banks.
As the banking industry becomes increasingly
complex, these new cutting edge data
technologies help mid-tier and smaller banks
mitigate risk and fraudulent activity and create
more compliant environments. And, they
provide real time metrics to improve customer
service and enhance product development all
at a fraction of the cost.
Struggles with Traditional Data Analytics
Many mid-tier and smaller banks struggle
with basic customer and business analytics
because they cannot afford traditional data
management platforms that are expensive,
highly technical, and often incompatible with
their existing infrastructure. Built for power
users who routinely prep, collate, extract and
compile data and reports, these platforms are
difficult and time consuming for nontechnical
employees even after training.
Unfortunately, these barriers prevent frontline
employees and their managers from having
direct access to information that is critical
to timely business decisions and customer
response. Prompt responses to regulators is
also of particular importance to smaller banks
since they are often subject to as much, if not
more, regulatory scrutiny than larger banks.
New decision management solutions take
aim at all of these challenges. Most are highly
“self-service” in nature, low maintenance and
do not require expensive technical consultants
to get work done. They empower smaller
players to be more nimble, competitive and
satisfy their employees’ growing need to
access information.

Committed
to bonds for
over 90 years
Ranked among the top 10 municipal trustees in the U.S. 1
While many banks have exited this line of business, MUFG Union Bank, N.A.,
has remained dedicated to bonds and the complexities of bond
administration for nearly a century.
Our relationship managers have an average of 18 years of in-depth
experience in corporate trust, escrow, and project finance. Ongoing
education to strengthen this knowledge enables our specialists to provide
insights into industry trends. Whether it’s making timely interest payments
to bondholders or providing comprehensive recordkeeping, you can count
on our support for the life of the issue.
MUFG Union Bank, N.A., was named Best Corporate Trust Bank in the U.S.
for four out of the last five years. 2
MUFG (Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group) is one of the world’s leading financial
groups. The global MUFG network encompasses 2,200 offices in more than
40 countries. MUFG provides access to corporate banking, trust banking,
securities trading services, credit cards, consumer banking and finance,
asset management, and leasing.
Learn more at mufgamericas.com/corporatetrust
Corporate Trust Services
Carl Boyd
Director
Southern California
213-236-7150
Dean Levitt
Director
No. California &
Pacific Northwest
415-705-5020
Julie B. Good
Director
Mid-West & Texas
714-336-4230
Nils Dahl
Director
Eastern U.S.
646-452-2115
MUFG Union Bank, N.A.
A member of MUFG, a global financial group
1
Thomson Reuters Financial.
2
2012, 2013, 2014, and 2016 Global Banking & Finance Review.
©2016 Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Inc. All rights reserved. The MUFG logo and name is a service mark of Mitsubishi UFJ
Financial Group, Inc., and is used by MUFG Union Bank, N.A., with permission. Member FDIC.

AMERICAS BANKING
How It Works: Conversations with Data
Today’s decision management platforms use technologies like
artificial intelligence, machine learning and cognitive search
to perform simple vocabulary-based data analysis. What this
means is that non-technical users can perform their own
analytics by simply typing questions like “How many customers
with more than one account take advantage of special perks for
having multiple accounts?” into a familiar, Google-like search
bar. Within seconds (not minutes!) the platform responds by
generating a customized report of real time, authenticated data
in easy-to-understand formats.
Business users in every corner of the organization can become
their own data analyst, engaging and collaborating in real time
data exploration to investigate business hunches, increase
efficiencies, share insights and information, maximize returns
and minimize risk exposures. Here are just a few ways teams
can benefit:
• Governance, Risk and Compliance can use AI, machine
learning and cognitive search to automate the process
of searching, understanding and managing changes to
regulations. A simple search-like interface can be used for
everything from looking for policy and procedure documents
to complex analysis of transactions by searching across
both structured and unstructured data.
• Risk Management can use natural language querying and
machine learning to connect the dots between emails,
phone calls, text and transactional information to spot
anomalies or compliance issues. (e.g. bankers opening
multiple accounts for the same customer; creating
online banking accounts with bogus email addresses;
customers performing fraudulent activities). Combined
with predictive analysis, this functionality can help predict
likely occurrences of fraud as well as detect and report of
fraudulent patterns.
• Sales & Marketing can easily track sales performance
and other key performance indicators (KPI) using both
internal and external customer data. This improves their
understanding of customer behavior and how to refine
customer segmentation.
• Customer Service now has the ability to search across
multiple data repositories and easily extract customer
data without using multiple systems and windows. This
facilitates response time and accuracy, improving customer
satisfaction and outcomes.
16 | Issue 6

AMERICAS BANKING
Considering the latest advancements in data analytics, there is
no reason why mid-tier banks still need to rely on yesterday’s
expensive, complex technologies and deny their business users
access to the kinds of actionable data insights that benefit
larger banks.
Ready to take the Plunge? Avoid the Pitfalls
In order to insure your organization gets the long term value
it deserves from a decision management solution, make data
analytics a part of your corporate DNA. This means getting top
management involved as well as line-of-business managers.
Let’s take a look at some basic things to keep in mind:
• Do your homework: With a growing number of solutions
available, look for a platform that is adaptable, scalable and
customizable to your unique business needs. The solution
should be truly “self-service” and require minimal employee
training and vendor support to run and maintain. Take the
time to properly define your business requirements upfront so
potential vendors can help you make the appropriate decisions.
• Get your workplace onboard: Remove corporate resistance
to empowering frontline staff to access data. Executive
Management should support a workplace culture free of central
gate keepers who decide how, what and when information
should be fed to the business.
• Reduce the need for human intervention: Think twice about
investing in multiple incompatible tools and building a larger
IT team to manage disparate systems. This is a decision that
many large banks suffer from today and smaller banks should
steer clear of this strategy.
• Find a technology partner that meets your needs: Consider
doing a gap analysis on the needs and support required by
your business teams to achieve company objectives. Ask
potential technology vendors to address these gaps and do
not settle for rigid prescriptive tools that only partially get the
job done. The right technology vendor must be a good cultural
fit for your company and understand what your organization
requires to truly meet the needs of its customers, employees,
and business goals.
Data has always played a critical role in day-to-day bank operations
and solving business problems. Until recently, most mid-tier and
smaller bank employees have missed out on the benefits of direct
and prompt access to big data. But now, thanks to the growing and
evolving world of data technologies, smaller financial institutions
finally have the opportunity to level the playing field.
Ashoke Dutt
CEO
Semantify
Ashoke Dutt is the CEO of Semantify, a
pioneering semantic search technology
platform company based in Chicago,
Illinois. His career in global financial
services spans more than 30 years
and includes the launch of India’s first
credit card business in 1989 at Citibank.
Dutt went on to assume various other
leadership roles at Citibank, including
EVP, International Cards. He also served
at Morgan Stanley (EVP, International
Retail), and Discover Card (EVP,
Marketing). Today, Dutt is an active
entrepreneur and investor, serving as
on boards of various start-ups and
philanthropic organizations.
Issue 6 | 17

AMERICAS BANKING
FRTB – Why Banks
Must Act Now
The final rules for the Fundamental Review
of the Trading Book (FRTB) regulations were
published in January and although details
of how the regulators in each jurisdiction
will implement them still remains ill-defined
we know the changes are coming and that
now is the time to prepare. FRTB, part of the
Basel III rules which were finally published
in January 2016, will transform the way
banks manage their capital requirements
in addition to how they are structured and
managed internally.
Risk models, liquidity horizons and data for
risk calculations, back testing and hedging
must be changed to meet the new regulatory
guidelines, with a significant component of
this change impacting desk structures and
their oversight, management and reporting.
The rules at a local level are not yet granular
enough for banks to implement them with
confidence. While this makes preparation
difficult, the deadline of January 2020 is not
far off considering the massive scale of the
changes. Financial institutions need to get
lean, streamline efficiencies and ultimately
prepare ahead of this change. With this in
mind, we propose some critical steps to help
during this period of uncertainty:
18 | Issue 6
Step One: Understanding the Scale of
the Changes
The implementation of FRTB will be
substantial and undoubtedly incur significant
costs, so if you haven’t already, setting up
a programme to ensure good governance
and structure is critical. It is important that
the FRTB team establish and maintain early
communication with impacted stakeholder
groups (especially Risk, Finance and Front
Office) as they will be looking at potential
impacts based on findings presented by
the team and as well as those assessed
internally. There is a degree of uncertainty
around the new rules for desk definition
and the need to clarify the P&L attribution.
This is currently being worked through via
the International Swaps and Derivatives
Association (ISDA) panel and examples
include repos for funding and liquidity
purposes that should be in the banking
book, but are in fact currently managed on a
trading desk.
Another complication is the difference
between the Volcker and FRTB desk
definitions, giving rise to speculation about
virtual, or “reporting desks”, versus physical
desks. Such an arrangement might be
acceptable under Volcker but is unlikely to be
valid under FRTB where desk management,
P&L attribution, strategy and remuneration
– all physical things – need to be clearly and
singularly associated with a desk.
Step Two: Get Lean Quick
The estimated costs of implementing FRTB
will double or quadruple the cost of doing
business across a bank. To stay competitive
and ensure you have the right mix of desks
to operate your business, it is important
to reduce costs and align procedures and
systems. Streamlining and rationalising
business and IT processes, implementing
automation in areas such as back testing,
consolidating systems and reducing your
costs per trade are all critical activities. Some
desks may no longer be viable businesses
once the changes have been made, but if you
know your structure, at least you will be in a
better position to decide which desks should
or shouldn’t remain.
Step three: Organise Your Data
One of the main concerns the various
regulatory programmes have raised for
banks relates to the completeness and
consistency of their data sourced from
multiple systems. Additionally, business

AMERICAS BANKING
desks will potentially need to produce up to
60 times more data than current levels for
certain desks. The subsequent increased
workload for regulators will be enormous. In
preparation, allocating more resources and
processes to interpret the data is essential.
Just like the ‘multiple trading system issue’
encountered in various trade repowrting
programmes, banks are about to have a
‘multiple risk system issue’. This is not
because those systems are deficient but
because, as with the trading systems, they
are generally single-purpose, operate in
relative isolation, and as a result do not
share a common data dictionary. This is
exacerbated by the current granularity
of the data versus the required degree of
granularity (i.e. risk measured at portfolio vs
transaction level) under the new regulations.
What is certain is that risk data will need
to be much more granular to provide
the correct inputs to calculations with
new categorisations for reporting to the
regulators. With banks juggling multiple
risk systems across asset classes and
geographies, there will be a requirement to
consolidate risk data in a central repository
from which calculations and reporting can
be derived. Firms that have already taken
steps to create central data repositories –
even for non-risk data, such as trade or client
data – will be in a much better position than
those who have not.
There will also need to be a much tighter
integration of data between the front
office and risk and finance functions to
ensure consistency of P&L attribution
calculations. If these fail three times in any
12-month period, the approved internal
model used by the desk will be withdrawn
by the regulator, immediately increasing
the desk’s capital charge.
There are many other topics to watch out
for within FRTB, such as multijurisdictional
implementation challenges, hypothetical
versus risk theoretical P&L, the move from
VaR to Expected Shortfall (ES), the treatment
of Non Modellable Risk Factors (NMRF), and
the uncertainty around CVA calculations.
Intertwined within these are the ‘softer side’
HR impacts of the new guidelines. The
rearrangement of the trading desks and
more stringent requirements for staff job
descriptions aligned to those desks and
their strategies and business cases will
have a significant impact on a company’s
organisational structure. Anything that so
fundamentally impacts a person’s role, their
responsibilities and authority levels, and
directly links them to a reportable, regulatorapproved
business case and strategy is
likely to significantly affect where and how
businesses are run post-FRTB.
This has been a brief look at only some of
the critical topics within FRTB. What’s known
is that it is coming – what’s not known is
how the banking world will look once all the
yet-to-be confirmed regulations are finalised
by local regulators.
Christopher Burke
CEO
Brickendon Consulting
Issue 6 | 19

AMERICAS TECHNOLOGY
7 logical steps to secure today’s Industrial
Control Systems
Critical infrastructure is evolving fast. No longer residing
in splendid isolation, many control systems are joining the
great migration to the Internet – with all its advantages
of ubiquitous coverage, easy access and potential
integration with other services and systems. There is a
real need for security testing, auditing and monitoring
– as well as physical and logical security training says
Sameer Dixit, Senior Director Security Consulting, Spirent
Communications
Industrial Control Systems (ICS) are taking industries’
control mechanisms online, allowing management to
monitor and control critical infrastructure remotely over
the Internet. This brings many management benefits,
providing a distributed workforce with real time monitoring
and control. As a result, individual companies and public
services are growing more efficient. They are reducing
overheads while gaining in agility and responsiveness – but
they also face new risks.
Welcome to cyberspace
Traditional security challenges include loss or theft of
employee and consumer data, and corporate secrets such
as intellectual property, future project designs and business
strategy plans getting leaked via breach in physical security,
network compromise, social engineering attacks or other
zero-day system vulnerabilities. Enterprise and financial
systems have grown up with these challenges and an entire
industry has developed around secure coding practices,
safeguarding databases and hardening networks with
firewalls, intrusion detection systems and deep packet
inspection devices to examine all the traffic on a network
and look for anomalies and cyber threats.
Critical control systems, however, were often developed as
stand-alone solutions, designed to fulfil a specific function
of replacing widespread manual operations with central
control. So they were not designed with cyber-security in
mind. When security became an issue, defence measures
were often layered on in a piecemeal fashion after the
networks become operational
– with a bias towards keeping out intruders or unauthorized
access, rather than the more devious and malign threats
that infect the Internet. Because of a strong incentive to get
the process operational, rather than imagining how it might
perform under attack, network routers were often installed
with default factory settings and an “administrator”
password that worked just fine, but left the system
vulnerable to attack.
Issue 6 | 21

AMERICAS TECHNOLOGY
22 | Issue 6

AMERICAS TECHNOLOGY
Critical control systems, many of them designed and built
long before the Internet became the backbone of our world
economy, are now increasingly being connected online,
and remote control of industrial processes brings new
risks of remote tampering. Manufacturing industries that
have already learned the vital necessity of cyber-security
to protect office networks now face a new threat that goes
beyond information or financial loss because it can result in
direct physical damage, wastage or breakdown. Increasing
automation also means that a lot more harm could happen
in a shorter time before management is alerted.
New Security Challenges
The expansion of integrated technology in the industrial
sector has created a surge in demand for process
automation, and an increase in self-driven heavy
machinery. These improvements in manufacturing are
creating a new cyber security challenge for industries
where cyber- attacks could destroy machinery and threaten
workers’ lives.
The Stuxnet worm is a famous example of what can
happen to physical systems – in January 2010 it reputedly
damaged up to a thousand centrifuges across Iran
by deliberately pushing them beyond recommended
operational rotation speeds. So the potential threat to ICS is
proven, and the risk to critical infrastructure has prompted
the US Department of Homeland Security to create a task
force ICS-CERT – “The Industrial Control Systems Cyber
Emergency Response Team”.
ICS-CERT aims to reduce risks within and across all critical
infrastructure sectors by partnering with law enforcement
agencies and the intelligence community and coordinating
efforts among Federal, state, local, and tribal governments
and control systems owners, operators, and vendors. ICS-
CERT also collaborates with international and private sector
Computer Emergency Response Teams (CERTs) to share
control systems-related security incidents and mitigation
measures.
Seven key steps for hardening critical systems
1 Defence-in-depth strategies
• Establish network segmentation, firewalls, and “de-militarised
zones”
• Deploy firewalls on SCADA and process control networks
2 Harden ICS remote access
• Authentication, authorization, and access control for direct and
remote connection
• Use virtual private networks and encryption for secure
communications
• Secure all wireless connections
• Deploy intruder detection and prevention systems
3 Manage patching for control systems
• Patch and vulnerability management
• Enterprise password management
• Computer security and privacy controls
• Secure control system modems
4 Establish a secure topology and architecture
• Apply and comply with security standards
• Always re-examine security when modernizing and upgrading
• Establish an industrial automation and control systems security
program
• Establish specifications for control system security procurement
5 Assess assets, vulnerabilities, and risks
• Understand and analyze critical infrastructure interdependencies
• Look for common vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure control
systems
• Conduct penetration testing of ICSs
6 Security and response training
• Initiate cyber-security training for control system engineers,
technicians, administrators and operators
7 Cyber-forensics planning for control systems
• Develop an ICS incident response plan
An extensive list of recommended best practices to
safeguard Industrial Control Systems can be found
on the ICS-CERT website at: https://ics-cert.us-cert.
gov/Recommended-Practices. Not surprisingly, the
recommendations follow similar lines to typical enterprise
network and perimeter security best practices.
Knowing where to start is often the biggest initial challenge.
Of course we do need more in- depth detail once we start
putting security into place, but it is better to begin with a
palatable summary. So, to save you reading hundreds of
documents, I will summarise the key requirements below
into seven common sense steps.
Sameer Dixit
Senior Director Security Consulting
Spirent Communications
Issue 6 | 23

“Strategic Alliances to support
SME Institutions making a
more effective impact
in financial inclusion
of the majority
population in
Mexico”
Financiamiento Progresemos, S.A. de C.V., SOFOM, E.N.R.
http://www.progresemos.com.mx/

AMERICAS BUSINESS
How to ‘keep calm and
carry on’ during an M&A
In June 2015, U.S security regulators
investigated a group of hackers, known as
FIN4. The group were suspected of breaking
into corporate email accounts of 100
listed companies and stealing information
in relation to mergers 1 for financial gain.
Hackers are always on the lookout for
opportunities to exploit vulnerable IT
systems during mergers or acquisitions.
Starwood Group, an American hotel and
leisure company, was the victim of a data
breach in 2015 caused by malware infected
point-of-sale terminals, shortly after the
acquisition by Marriott Corporation had
been announced. As a result of the breach,
hackers gained access to customer names,
payment card numbers, security codes, and
expiration dates. It was later questioned
whether IT systems were appropriately
assessed before the acquisition was made
public knowledge.
There is so much going on in the process of
an acquisition or a business merger that IT
systems are often neglected. This creates
vulnerabilities, potentially exposing sensitive
information which cyber criminals can
exploit. IT teams must focus their attention
on ensuring the security of existing
systems before a company even considers
undergoing an acquisition or merger.
Pre-acquisition technical due diligence
Technical due diligence refers to the
period during which IT systems are
inspected, reviewed and assessed for
areas of vulnerability that need to be
addressed. Organisations looking to be
acquired or merge, should begin a process
of technical due diligence internally before
seeking interested parties. By carrying out
such an internal technical due diligence, the
company being acquired can be satisfied
its systems are robust, secure and fit for
purpose, and the acquirer’s due diligence
will not expose any issues that may
jeopardise the deal.
In addition to the security vulnerabilities,
many organisations carry open-source
licensing risks. Open-source modules
or snippets of code are commonly
incorporated by developers into software to
aid rapid development. Although this opensource
code is freely downloadable, it is
normally subject to an open-source licence,
and this licence places restrictions and
obligations on what can be done with this
code. Companies often have no idea what
open-source code is used in their systems
and any breach of licensing restrictions can
be costly to fix and endanger the deal. So
the internal technical due diligence should
include an assessment of open-source
licensing risk, allowing the company to
resolve any problems in advance.
By conducting thorough technical due
diligence before embarking on the process
of an acquisition, organisations will have
a greater appeal to interested parties and
can ensure the deal will proceed smoothly.
Those looking to acquire will have a clearer
understanding of the technical assets for sale,
with the added reassurance there won’t be
any unpleasant surprises.
Yahoo recently felt the ramifications of
neglecting IT systems in anticipation of the
Verizon acquisition, after it was revealed earlier
this year that 500 million customer email
accounts were hacked. This now has the
potential to affect the final deal - Verizon have
issued a statement stating that the company
is looking to alter the terms of the deal, as it felt
Yahoo wasn’t completely transparent about the
breach. This is a prime example of technical
due diligence that hasn’t been thoroughly
conducted and proves issues unearthed during
the closing stages of an acquisition have the
potential to affect the final sale price.
Pre-implementation hurdles
Once an acquisition has been agreed in
principle, senior stakeholders must then
address which systems are being continued
and which should be decommissioned. A
skilled project manager must be chosen to
manage and monitor the implementation of
the systems; ensuring decisions impacting
the seamless integration of the acquisition are
made on time.
Issue 6 | 25

We are the bridge
that connects you
with world markets
We offer the most advanced solutions
to operate in real time worldwide
0810 666 4717
www.puentenet.com
Financial solutions since 1915
PUENTE HNOS. S.A. IS AN INTEGRAL AND SETTLEMENT AGENT AND A BARGAINING AGENT (ALYC INTEGRAL) REGISTRED AT THE CNV (ACRONYM WHICH STANDS FOR "COMISION NACIONAL DE
VALORES", "NATIONAL SECURITIES EXCHANGE COMMISSSION" IN ENGLISH) UNDER NUMBER 28, AND REGISTRED AT THE PUBLIC REGISTRY OF COMMERCE UNDER NUMBER 11481, BOOK 6, VOLUME
- OF "CORPORATIONS". REPÚBLICA BUILDING, 1st TUCUMAN ST, 14th FLOOR (C1049AAA), BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA. PHONE 0810-666-4717 / CUIT 30-70102707-4 / WWW.PUENTENET.COM

AMERICAS BUSINESS
Companies often underestimate the amount
of work that goes into managing the
process of an acquisition. This can result
in the appointment of a project manager
without the necessary skills needed to
efficiently run the entire process. All too
often it is assumed acquisitions only affect
the financial and legal teams, when in reality
it affects every department. An individual
is needed with the skills to communicate
across all departments and at all levels.
Post-acquisition finishing touches
The sale is agreed and personnel have
merged, but it doesn’t stop there. Postacquisition
integration is a separate
project in its own right and requires close
engagement from senior stakeholders.
Merging IT systems across companies
can affect the smooth running of daily
operations, exposing flaws in acquired
systems likely to cause system downtime.
By bringing third-party experts on-board,
companies facing both pre- and postacquisition
challenges can be kept safe
in the knowledge that IT systems are
maintained and sensitive data is kept safe.
No matter how big or small the company
or the number of employees, acquisitions
are always a major upheaval. In order
to allow the organisation to continue to
operate efficiently both during and after
the deal, it is vital the entire integration is
properly planned and effectively executed.
This planning starts during due diligence
by carrying out a thorough assessment
of the technology and systems. And the
process continues with the execution of the
integration project, which requires a skilled
project manager supported by engaged
stakeholders and effective communication
at all levels in the new organisation.
Nick Pointon
Head of M&A
SQS
1
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-hackers-insidertradinidU
SKBN0P31M720150623
Issue 6 | 27

AMERICAS TECHNOLOGY
Understanding the
Next Generation of
Software Robotics
28 | Issue 6

AMERICAS TECHNOLOGY
Neil Kinson, chief of staff, Redwood
Software discusses why we must move
away from the idea that robots simply
replace humans if the industry is to thrive in
the new year.
The Robotised Enterprise, where an
organisation has realised the ideal of having
all back-office operations fully robotised
so human involvement is only required
for judgement and analysis, is seldom
understood from a business perspective.
The shared services sector in particular
is split on the capability of robotics when
performing critical business processes.
According to recent Redwood Software
research carried out with Shared Services
Link, 97% of people in shared services agree
that robotics have the ability to automate
manual data entry tasks, yet only 52%
are in agreement that they understand
basic financial processes. Only 51% of
respondents were confident in their ability
to replace human activity across the entire
spectrum, which is surprising considering
that 67% of shared service professionals
plan on using RPA within the next 12
months. 72% of these organisations plan
on leveraging existing investment in ERP
to drive further automation in the next year.
Process robotics can therefore play an
integral role in how processes are managed
and transformed in shared services.
So, what do these statistics mean and how
can shared services and finance professionals
better understand Robotic Process
Automation in order to fully reap the benefits?
Understanding robotics
Everyone is talking about robotics but no
one is agreeing on a uniform definition.
Everyone thinks that they know, but no one
is looking at it holistically.
We need to make some clear distinctions
between the different forms of process
robotics on the market.
According to the Institute for Robotic
Process Automation (IRPA), enterprise
process robotics is the application of
technology that enables employees to
configure computer software or a ‘robot’ to
capture and analyse existing applications for
manipulating data, processing a transaction
or triggering responses and communicating
with other digital systems.
But that is not the extent of robotics’
capability. The rise of process robotics
presents a real chance to reimagine
processes from the ground up. Companies
should look at how they can positively
transform core processes by looking at
opportunities with a ‘robotic lens’ and not
a ‘human one’. For example, to ensure
enterprise grade scalability, security and
resilience, organisations should deploy
robots to interact with business and core
ERP systems through APIs and other
standard integration methods.
In light of this, organisations should
thoroughly consider how robotics can
be used to achieve significant process
improvement, part of which requires a
strong commitment to not doing things in
the way they have always been done, but
rather the way they’ve always imagined
processes could be done.
What many finance and shared services
professionals are worried about however, is
that if you remove humans from the process
entirely, control will diminish. That is not the
case. Indeed, it is the opposite. Automating
processes end-to-end removes the siloed
approach and enhances overall control.
Robotics isn’t too good to be true
Now we have defined robotics, it is important
to understand the benefits it can bring to
a company. In a financial context, process
robotics brings tremendous potential to
improve core financial processes and
efficiencies, and more importantly, the
standardisation thereof. For example, reports
can be automatically generated allowing
for reliable and trusted data thanks to the
accompanying documentation and 100%
accurate audit trails that are present at every
part of the process. Moreover, built in business
rules eliminate the need to micro manage and
allows users to trigger actions and monitor
processes, whether at a desk or on the move.
Recent Redwood research into the rise of
‘RoboFinance®’ revealed that investment
into robotics doesn’t just meet, but can
in fact exceed a company’s expectations.
At Royal DSM – a global science, health
and nutrition company – it was reported
that by deploying over 60 software
“process robots” across nine business
groups allowed the organisation to
automate a staggering 89 percent of the
485,000 manual tasks associated with its
global financial close process, shrank its
financial close process from 15 to 3 days,
and freed up 45 Full Time Equivalents
(FTEs) for more valuable work. The limits
of what enterprise process robotics can
achieve for core business processes are
seemingly limitless.
2017 as the ‘new dawn’ for robotics
The days of throwing more timeconsuming
manual effort at critical
business processes to make them run
more efficiently are behind us. Process
robotics, without the need for unnecessary
manual intervention, offers the consistency,
speed and accuracy that businesses need
to stay afloat in today’s competitive global
marketplace. Those organisations that
embrace robotics will be the ones that
survive and thrive in 2017 and beyond.
Neil Kinson
Chief of Staff
Redwood Software
Issue 6 | 29

AMERICAS FINANCE
Risk-Based
Approach
to KYC
A sound concept, a complex reality
When Know-Your-Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money-Laundering
(AML) legislation came onto the scene in the early 1990s,
one might say it lacked finesse – it was highly prescriptive in
nature, leaving little room for interpretation and forced banks
and financial institutions (FIs) to tick the boxes of compliance
controls. Within a decade, it started to become clear that one
size actually didn’t fit all.
These regulations originally based on the risks and controls
related to retail banking simply didn’t fit other business models,
such as private, institutional or investment banking and wealth
management. But because compliance isn’t optional, all
businesses had to comply as best they could – even if that
meant shoehorning retail AML control concepts to fit their own
business models, while potentially missing the real risks to
which they were exposed. The end result was that compliance
efforts frequently failed to meet regulatory expectations.
And then came the Risk-Based Approach (RBA), a logical new
approach to managing risk.
An added layer of complexity
Imagine a compliance environment where the controls match
the actual risk. That was the goal of RBA – a more flexible
and rational approach, shifting the focus to banks and FIs
demonstrating they were addressing actual risks that AML
controls exposed, rather than simply ticking (sometimes
irrelevant) boxes hoping to satisfy the regulator. Prior to RBA,
controls were black and white regardless of circumstances. The
RBA allowed flexibility to reduce or increase controls based on the
customer and the risk they posed.
While the RBA made life easier in some ways, it made it harder in
others. Firms were expected to understand and assess the specific
risks they faced and have a deeper understanding of risk in general.
The new approach also required a degree of interpretation and
individualization by firms and their compliance departments.
Issue 6 | 31

AMERICAS FINANCE
Risk-based approach and the financial action task
force
In 2007, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) stepped
in with its first attempt at implementing an RBA, issuing a
paper which stated:
“By adopting a risk-based approach, competent authorities
and financial institutions are able to ensure that measures to
prevent or mitigate money laundering and financing threats are
commensurate to the risks identified. This will allow resources
to be allocated in the most efficient ways. The principle is that
resources should be directed in accordance with priorities
so that the greatest risks receive the highest attention. The
alternative approaches are that resources are either applied
evenly, so that all financial institutions, customers, products,
etc., receive equal attention, or that resources are targeted,
but on the basis of factors other than the risk assessed. This
can inadvertently lead to a ‘tick box’ approach with the focus
on meeting regulatory needs rather than combating money
laundering or financing threats.”
The intention of the RBA was clear: to create more pragmatic
processes. The result was somewhat different, with highly
complex processes emerging in many instances as a direct
result of individual interpretation of the new guidelines. This led
to widespread confusion throughout the industry.
The FATF then revised its guidelines in 2010. The Expert
Working Group advising the FATF on the risk-based approach
and FATF Recommendations in 2010 said:
“As a basic principle, financial institutions and DNFBPs
(Designated Non-Financial Businesses and Professions) should
be required to take steps to identify and assess their money
laundering/financing threat risks for customers, countries or
32 | Issue 6

AMERICAS FINANCE
In 2012, as part of their revision of the 40 Recommendations,
the FATF issued a further definition regarding the RBA
requiring countries to assess and understand their moneylaundering/financing-threat
risks and to designate an authority
to coordinate actions to assess and mitigate risks using a
risk-based approach. It also noted that countries should
require reporting entities to assess and take effective action to
mitigate their money-laundering/financing-threat risks.
The 2010 and 2012 definitions delivered largely positive
results: By focusing on understanding money- laundering/
financing-threat risk and then deploying effective controls
to manage and mitigate those risks, the current guidelines
are far more “workable” and therefore much more useful
to banks and FIs grappling with a constantly increasing
regulatory burden.
Two pillars of risk assessment
This evolution in the RBA has resulted in two distinct pillars of
risk assessment. First, on a country-by-country basis, each
individual government needs to understand their vulnerability
to money laundering through national risk assessments.
Social demographics are, of course, unique to each country,
so this exercise in understanding your environment forms an
important pillar in a successful AML strategy.
Second, against the context of national risk, each FI must
complete its own internal risk assessment, tailoring its
money-laundering/financing-threat risk management
program around this. However, these internal assessments
can be quite complex, particularly when individual
interpretation of guidelines is thrown into the mix.
What risks need to be addressed?
There are four main categories of risk to consider:
geographic areas, and products/services/transactions/delivery
channels. Additionally, they should have policies, controls and
procedures in place to effectively manage and mitigate their
risks, which should be approved by senior management and be
consistent with national requirements and guidance.”
This language was materially different from the 2007 FATF
paper and signaled a seismic shift in clarity over what RBA
means. 2010 was also the first time the FATF articulated the
concept of “effective” risk-based controls, and this definition
also makes national legislators responsible for defining what is
deemed to be effective.
Despite being issued in 2010, this concept is still filtering
through: Regulators around the world are increasingly
using the language of “effectiveness” in their dialogue with
industry. Effectiveness has further been pushed up the
agenda of national regulators as the FATF’s fourth round
of mutual evaluations specifically focuses on “effective in
practice” assessments.
Vulnerability
The first category concerns the vulnerability of a specific
business operation. FATF 2012 sets out a lengthy list of
offenses, and firms must guard against each and every
one of these. Compliance professionals should be asking
questions such as, “Are we vulnerable to, for example, people
smuggling or drug trafficking?”
Create an environment that promotes money laundering?
The second category centers on the risk of a bank or FI
inadvertently creating an environment that promotes or allows
money laundering. Questions to ask include, “Do our controls create
an environment where the money launderer can thrive? Are there
any gaps in our controls that a money launderer could exploit?”
More specific risks
The risks above are general in nature, and the third category
comprises a selection of more specific risks, including:
Issue 6 | 33

AMERICAS FINANCE
• Customer risk – Banks and FIs must have adequate KYC
processes in place to ensure they understand whom
they’re doing business They must fully understand the risks
posed by a particular person or entity, including politically
exposed person (PEP) risk and sanction risk.
• Product vulnerability – Certain products are naturally
more attractive to money launderers than for example, a
checking account offers more scope for laundering than
a fixed-term deposit. Factors such as the availability and
flexibility of a product could make it inherently risky from a
money- laundering perspective.
• Geographic risk – Not all countries carry the same risks,
and banks and FIs need to be aware of the specific risk
environments where they Operating in high moneylaundering/financing-
threat risk countries means that a
more stringent control environment could be necessary.
Regulatory risk
The final category is regulatory risk. There is always the risk
that banks and FIs don’t adequately measure up to regulatory
expectations. The stakes are high, and the financial and
reputational fallout from compliance breaches is well-documented.
Regulatory risk is sometimes poorly understood and
inconsistently addressed. This risk often keeps compliance
professionals awake at night and, just possibly, takes their
collective eye off identifying the business-specific risks outlined
above. The fear of regulatory failure could well be driving
a disproportionate interpretation of what is required and,
perversely, contributing to increased regulatory risk.
What’s hampering risk-based approach?
Over the last decade, compliance professionals have joined the
C-suite as the “new” importance of this “hot topic” has resulted
in a drive to keep the institution safe. At the same time, there
is often a tendency to overly complicate processes. The risk
with that complexity is that the controls implemented are not
commensurate with actual risk, which was the original aim of RBA.
It is clear from the FATF 2012 guidelines and the evolution
of RBA that while this fresh approach has been widely
implemented, it is not well understood. Processes have not
been fully formed and, in some cases, are driving the wrong
outcomes. Despite all the efforts of FATF, local regulators and
entire compliance teams, there are still some cases where
there are inadequate controls in place to manage and mitigate
money-laundering/financing-threat risk.
The fact that current regulations were originally based on the
risks and controls relating to retail banking has unintentionally
created regulatory barriers to the effective deployment of an
RBA in many sectors. The more progressive regulatory regimes
recognize this and are striving to address the polarized nature
of legislation and regulation to create regulatory environments
where a truly risk-sensitive regime can be sustained.
Legislation around AML and RBA was also largely written in
the pre-digital age when access to the data that helps firms
understand and document risk was limited. There is now a
plethora of data available, but many organizations struggle to
take advantage of this. Solutions are becoming widely available
to help firms harness the power of information to drill down and
find the risks they need to be considering.
Thomson Reuters has devoted significant resources to
developing a suite of risk products and services that support
a firm’s development and the operation of an effective RBA.
Thomson Reuters Org ID, as one possible solution, provides a
KYC-managed service that supports systematic risk identification
based on identity data, and documents and carries out ongoing
monitoring, alerting a firm to any changes surrounding a
corporate customer and the potential risks they pose.
34 | Issue 6

AMERICAS FINANCE
Back to simplicity
RBA as a concept remains sound – and it is far superior to the
tick-box approach it has replaced. What’s needed is simplicity
of assessment and application, because the very real risk faced
by firms is that they may spend vast amounts of time and effort
creating a control environment that complies with regulations
but doesn’t actually manage the real risks they face – all while
inadvertently contributing to increased regulatory risk.
Here’s an alternative approach: Focus on simplicity – on identifying
and managing the actual money- laundering/financing-threat risks
a firm faces – and deploy controls that are proportionate to those
risks. The result will be that firms will automatically comply with
the aim and philosophy of the vast majority of AML regulations.
Neil Jeans
Head of Policy & Regulation
Thomson Reuters Org ID
Issue 6 | 35

36 Issue 6Middle
East

MIDDLE EAST INSURANCE
Health Insurance
in Saudi Arabia
Bupa Arabia is one of the largest health insurers
in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, meeting the
insurance needs of both individual clients as well
as some of the Kingdom’s largest companies.
Tal Hisham Nazer has been the Chief Executive
Officer of Bupa Arabia since 2008. Under his
leadership, Bupa Arabia has become one of the
fastest growing and successful health insurance
companies in Saudi Arabia. Bupa Arabia is part
of Bupa, the global healthcare company with 32
million members in 190 countries. Global Banking
& Finance Review interviewed Tal Hisham Nazer
to find out more about the health insurance
landscape in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and
Bupa Arabia’s success.
Let’s discuss the health insurance landscape in
Saudi Arabia. What are current challenges you
see present?
There is no doubt that the insurance market
in Saudi Arabia faces many challenges, most
notably of which are, the high volume of claims,
lower prices, compared to the risks, budget cuts,
in companies compared to the business volume,
in the Saudi market, as well as the problem of
undercutting prices, which aims to expand sales
without regard to the potential risks.
Despite the widespread use of insurance
companies to cover most parts of the Kingdom.
The greatest concentration of business
establishment remains in major cities, due to the
lack of qualified hospitals and clinics that cover
most regions of the Kingdom.
The healthcare sector still needs a lot of
legislation that promotes the continuous spread
of insurance companies, while assuring highquality
services to the beneficiary as well.
Today, there are no set standards that control the
quality of the services and customer satisfaction.
Giving specialized international companies the
opportunity to invest in healthcare services will
enhance the market capacity. Therefore, leading
to a higher level of competition and limits the
continuous increase in healthcare costs.
Issue 6 | 37

MIDDLE EAST INSURANCE
What message do you have for those
looking for insurance? What types of
products and services are available for the
“family” segment?
Bupa Arabia for Family is designed to meet
the insurance needs of Saudi families. The
Bupa Family products attributes are:
• Overall medical insurance: One of our
important goals is to continue to offer
an overall medical insurance program
that includes the treatment of patients
both inside and outside the Kingdom;
medical consultations at specialist
doctors; congenital and genetic
diseases care as well as chronic
diseases care; pre-existing condition
allowances; medical evacuation, and so
on. We also cover patient companion
costs (up to 12 years-old); and also
include pregnancy and maternity
coverage, dental and optical coverage,
and we cover the cost of hearing aids.
These are all available under different
insurance packages.
• Coverage to suit you and your family:
We offer a wide range of products that
offer coverage with value and flexibility,
that is wide-ranging in its benefits;
all that is essential for your peaceof-mind,
which is exactly what Bupa
Arabia’s Family insurance products
deliver.
• Best in-class service: With Bupa
Arabia, you don’t just get the best
healthcare coverage, but the best level
of service as well. We always go the
extra mile with fast pre-authorization
responses, easy claims, SMS message
updates; and a secure, comprehensive
and personalized online information
system; as well as specialized medical
advice and guidance, online and by
phone 24/7.
• The Tebtom program and the ‘Doctor
on Phone’ service: It’s natural to be
worried with healthcare concerns, and
be reluctant to tell anyone. The Bupa
‘Doctor on Phone’ service from Tebtom,
gives you peace-of-mind through
confidential advice, a second opinion
on any medical condition you would
prefer not to discuss with anyone
in person, as well as many other
healthcare services.
Customer service is a priority for Bupa
Arabia. Why is this a primary focus?
We are our customers’ healthcare partners;
people trust us with the health of their loved
ones. So, it’s natural that when they call
on us, we are there for them every step of
the way. Telephone calls are personal and
allow for that human-to-human element
that is missed through other means of
communication. That’s why the call center
is so important.
How do you continue to meet the everchanging
needs of customers?
• Annual Innovation and Strategy
workshops
• Review of data collected through the
call center, addressing the top issues
and needs of our calling customers
• “Call center quality” reports and
reviews.
• “Satisfaction reports and reviews”
• Remaining agile and proactive to adapt
with the ever-changing need of our
customers.
How is Bupa Arabia meeting the challenges
of IT development?
With the rise of digital trends and the
massive increase of mobile penetration
into the Kingdom, Bupa Arabia has realized
the potential of digital channels to offer
unmatched services to members, that
change the landscape of health insurance.
Bupa Arabia was the first in the industry
to offer online services to its members.
Our members can track their claims
and preauthorization requests, obtain
an insurance certificate, and access
their membership cards online through
our website or App.
to be with them step-by-step as they work
towards living healthier and happier lives.
We also thought about ways to make it
easier for our coverage members to find
the clinics and hospitals covered under
their network. Through the Bupa Arabia
mobile app and geo-location technology
our members can be given directions to the
hospital or clinic they need (if they allow the
option on their mobile device).
We have also invested in digital channels
(online services and the Bupa Arabia mobile
app) to allow our members to access
unprecedented sets of health services such
as those included in the Tebtom Program that
include medication delivery, maternity care,
home-based vaccinations, wellness services
and telemedicine where by phone, mobile app,
or through the Bupa Arabia website, our team
of doctors will make sure members receive an
exceptional level of service.
We also reach out to the entire community
through the health tips and articles that
we frequently post on our social media
platforms and Bupa Arabia blog (blog.bupa.
com.sa).
In addition, we have revolutionized the way
insurance is purchased, as we were the first
in the market to utilize e-commerce and sell
private medical insurance policies online.
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
has been an initiative that is important
and close to the hearts for those at Bupa
Arabia. Can you tell us some of the ways
you support socioeconomic development
in Saudi Arabia?
After analyzing numerous possibilities for
our initial CSR program, we decided that
the strengths of Bupa Arabia could be best
utilized by focusing on our core competency.
This strategy ultimately gave birth to a
new program that provides free medical
coverage to the most vulnerable in our
society: Orphans.
At Bupa Arabia, we don’t make promises
we cannot keep. We pledged to guide our
members, and members of the community,
38 | Issue 6

MIDDLE EAST INSURANCE
There are an estimated 10,000 orphans
in Saudi Arabia, 3,000 of who live in
government-run, and private orphanages
and 7000 of who have been adopted by
families. Until now, orphanage residents
relied on government-run hospitals for
healthcare. These facilities, often located
far from the orphanages, are frequently
overcrowded, inefficient and lacking
quality and resources. Transportation
issues, long queues and appointments
set months in advance, all combined to
devastate orphan healthcare. With all of
this in mind, the decision to provide free
health insurance to the 3000 orphans
living in orphanages as the first phase of
our program, was an easy decision. We
wanted to implement this immediately.
Today whenever any of our orphans visit
a hospital or clinic, we are alerted and
ensure he or she is given VIP service.
Additionally, with the difficulties of raising an
orphan foremost in our minds, we decided
to implement a program that goes beyond
simply supplying health insurance cards.
Today, we provide them with a service that
makes them feel special, and cared for. Bupa
Arabia is the only private health insurance
company to offer free insurance to any
group in the Kingdom.
Since the program’s inception in May, 2011,
we have processed over 250,000 services
and treatments along with 290 exceptional
cases through this CSR initiative.
What is the strategic vision for Bupa
Arabia?
For Bupa Arabia….
To be the largest healthcare company
in the Arab world; when we touch you,
whether you are our employee, a customer,
or member of the community, you live a
healthier and happier life.
Tal Hisham Nazer
CEO
Bupa Arabia
Tal Nazer is a member of the board
of Arabian Medical Marketing Co.
Ltd. (Nawah), and was previously
the Chairman of the Saudi Arabia
Monetary Agency (SAMA) Insurance
General Committee, and is currently
the Chairman of the Health Insurance
Subcommittee.
In addition, since 2013, Nazer has
been a member of the board of the
Human Resources Development Fund
(HRDF); and a member of the Young
Presidents Organization (YPO) since
2005; as well as a member in WEF’s
Young Global Leaders (YGL) since
2013; as well as a board member of
Choate Rosemary Hall since 2015.
Nazer holds a Master’s Degree in
Finance and Buyouts from The
Wharton School, Pennsylvania, USA
(2001) and a Bachelor of Arts Degree
in Economics, from the University of
California at Los Angeles (Dec. 1996).
Issue 6 | 39

MIDDLE EAST TECHNOLOGY
Five Factors
Behind Digital
Transformation
Success
Digital transformation is having a huge
impact on every aspect of the way we
work, live and learn. Big data, social, cloud
computing and developments in mobile
technology have already drastically altered
the landscape of business, education, entertainment
and government.
Whole businesses have been built on
cloud and big data, while existing companies
have used the technology to diversify
into new areas of business. And any company
that is not paying attention to social
media and mobile innovation is frankly
living in the dark ages.
The pace and scale of change that digital
technology is enabling means organisations
must adapt to remain relevant. And they
must use digital technology to do so. In
short, digital transformation is now a business
imperative.
The form this takes will vary widely, but
the majority of enterprises will overhaul
their digital customer interfaces, along
with the customer engagement systems
behind them. Customer services will also
become increasingly personalised, with IDC
predicting that doing this at scale will be a
“complex enterprise-wide digital transformation
initiative”.
In addition, IDC predicts 1 that in the next two
years, two-thirds of Global 2000 2 CEOs will
put digital transformation at the centre of
their growth and profitability strategies while
40 | Issue 6
the scale-up of digital business strategies
will drive more than 50% of enterprise IT
spending within the next 24 months, rising
to 60% by 2020.
However, most organizations are still in the
early stages of digital maturity, working on
isolated projects that lack coordination.
Even where digital transformation has
taken place, it’s not always been a success:
IDC found that less than half of such
initiatives achieve their goals. This is often
down to IT departments failing to deliver
the speed or quality needed to chase new
markets, respond to competitive threats or
increase profits.
In contrast, the handful of organisations
that fully understand enterprise-wide digital
transformation are making increasingly-rapid
progress, disrupting industries and leaving
competitors behind in the process.
Digital transformation clearly means different
things to different people and that pursuing
a strategy won’t necessarily equate to
the changes that are need to ensure future
business success. But if businesses are
able to incorporate some key ingredients
into their digital transformation strategies,
success will more than likely follow.
What follows is a summary of the considerations
exchanged in a series of discussions
with more than 150 high-level IT
executives from different industries across
Europe about digital and IT transformation,
highlighting what’s really needed to help
CIOs thrive and overcome obstacles on their
journey, from roadmap definition to multiphased
implementation across applications,
infrastructure and operating models.
Adopt a risk-taking attitude
Transformational change is often difficult
to achieve as existing IT systems, organizational
setup and culture create an inertia
that is hard to break from. A culture of ‘if
it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ persists in many
organisations, to the detriment of change.
Businesses must be prepared to take risks
and move away from the way things were
done in the past if they are to achieve
IT-driven innovation. Essentially, they should
try new approaches that will help pave the
way for digital transformation across the
entire organization.
This could mean putting open innovation
and dev ops programmes in place or assigning
IT teams to specific business units.
Looking at the talent side of things, a hiring
programme focused on millennials would
bring in native digital skills to support the
new way of doing things.
Put data at the heart of things
Data is the fuel for innovation and should
be used for value creation, prediction and
process optimisation. Success in creating
new services and ways of working

MIDDLE EAST TECHNOLOGY
depends on the data pipelines that flow in
and out of organisations.
Some organisations have taken this seriously
by appointing a Chief Data Officer who
will have an overview of company data and
how it should be classified. They will look
at the rules and regulations for various data
classes to ensure they are used in the most
appropriate way.
Big data and analytics are critical in this, as
they provide the capability to extract more
value from data than ever before, slicing
and dicing information in new ways that can
provide new and useful insight that could be
used to enhance digital customer experience
and targeted marketing.
Create a modern datacentre
This secular shift requires and is propelled
by a fundamental IT transformation, which
embraces cloud as a primary IT architecture
and consumption model, to manage millions
of devices and the data deluge associated
with them, to create large data lakes and enable
for example predictive services. This
all creates the need for a modern datacentre
architecture to overcome the information
siloes and rigid IT infrastructure that limits
transformation and the implementation of a
hybrid cloud IT infrastructure.
Hybrid cloud infrastructure is in fact a key
enabler of digital transformation as it supports
mobile and cloudnative workloads
as well as the existing business-critical
and legacy workloads. At the same time,
it supports innovative projects initiated by
the business.
It is important that CIOs evaluate which
workloads and data should move to the
cloud so that the benefits of scalability,
agility and service-based IT delivery are
maximised. A strong business case should
always be developed before data is moved
between environments to ensure that it is
being moved for the right reasons.
Foster closer ties between IT and business
innovation
Business innovation initiatives are often
limited in their success by being separated
from the infrastructure, systems and processes
required to support them. This siloed
approach means business departments and
IT aren’t aligned, making it harder for IT to
deliver exactly what is needed.
Effective digital transformation requires an
IT organization that acts as a strong partner
with the rest of the business that provides
the necessary tools and infrastructure to
support specific projects. Bringing together
the skills and talents from across business
and IT will ensure transformation projects
deliver the intended impact.
This is particularly important given that long
term stable digital transformation requires
continuous innovation and integration.
Choose the right tech provider
The final element needed for effective digital
transformation is a technology provider
that matches the ambition of the business
and will be relevant in the long term. To be
effective and successful partners to their
customers, technology providers must provide
support for a strategy and governance
framework that spans operating model,
infrastructure and applications, delivering
measurable results in each phase of implementation
to then also transform leadership
and customer experience. This will truly help
CIOs to thrive in the digital era.
1
2
Roberto Mircoli
Senior Director Enterprise Marketing –
EMEA
Dell EMC
http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS40552015
(n.d.). Retrieved December 08, 2016, from http://www.forbes.
com/global2000/
Issue 6 | 41

MIDDLE EAST FINANCE
Microfinance Movement:
Time for a Revolution?
42 | Issue 6

MIDDLE EAST FINANCE
2016 has arguably been a transformative
year for financial technology – a new, digital
approach to delivering financial services
has offered a faster, more convenient and
more useful experience to customers
by combining platforms, channels and
technology. Today millions of people are
gaining access to financial services that
were otherwise unattainable in previous
years. It’s an incredibly exciting and time for
the “fintech” business and its overall impact
on society.
In developing countries, 2.5 billion
people are ‘unbanked’ and have to rely
on cash or informal financial services
which are typically unsafe, inconvenient
and expensive. There are many areas of
technology currently being used to try and
disrupt traditional banking models and
enable financial inclusion within certain
emerging markets.
These advancements have proven that
being unbanked does not equate to
unbankable, in fact they are very much still
credit worthy. A new shift in thinking has
opened wide the possibility to meet people
where they are with the service they most
need, and that shift was enabled by two
simple words: digital transformation.
Digital transformation means different
things to different industries, but at its core
it is the same - a new way of conducting
business, transactions, even life. It is an
always on, always personalized, always
direct means of engaging with customers
when they want it, where they want it and
how they want it. For mobile operators,
this transformation was made possible by
the convergence of three key areas: cloud
capabilities, big data and the ubiquitous rise
of smartphones.
Digital financial technology, or
“fintech,” has expanded access to
financial services for hard-to-reach
populations and small businesses
at low cost and risk. New products
are now possible, where they weren’t
before. The combustion of cloud
computing and data science, along with
the proliferation of smartphones has
opened up opportunities to establish
financial identities for the billions who
are underbanked. The use of cloud
computing and data science have made
complex functionalities accessible across
diverse locations and markets.
The widespread use of mobile phones
in emerging markets has created the
conditions for large-scale expansion
of mobile financial services, which will
enable organizations to dramatically
increase financial inclusion. However,
identity presents a major challenge.
The majority of these consumers are
anonymous, preventing access to
essential mobile financial services. Juvo’s
mission is to establish the financial
identities for the 5.7 billion prepaid mobile
users around the world who are credit
worthy, yet financially excluded.
We are partnering with mobile operators
to help provide a financial identity to
these subscribers using big data to create
‘Identity Scoring’ - a concept more robust
than a credit score because it takes into
account behaviors, preferences and lifestyle.
Using machine learning to analyze digital
footprints left by smartphone use, Juvo
builds a financial identity and provides
access to mobile financial services. Mobile
operators are seeing an immediate lift in
ARPU of 10-15 percent and a 50 percent
reduction in churn. Financial services
companies open the door to a previously
untapped market in the billions, and
individual subscribers are exposed to a host
of opportunities they wouldn’t otherwise
have as Juvo walks them up a pathway to
financial inclusion.
The world of finance is starting to recognize
the immense value in this wholly untapped
market, and a recent report from McKinsey 1
placed a dollar amount of $3.7 trillion by
2025 on the impact that digital finance will
have in emerging markets. Sophisticated
technology offers the ability to meet
segments that were previously unreachable
before and mobile banking is of course one
example of this new phenomenon. It was
reported 2 that in 2014 that 80 percent of
adults in emerging economies had mobile
phones, but only 55 percent have a financial
account. With three billion new smartphone
subscribers expected in emerging markets
by 2020 3 , it is clear that the potential to
deliver advanced financial services is vast
and is spurring a digital revolution.
2017 is set to be a big year for the fintech
sector. It will be the ticket for financial
inclusion for all in a global digital economy.
While the microfinance movement has its
place, it isn’t a game-changer for the vast
majority of the population. The revolution
will come when users can be identified and
assigned a financial identity that will bring
real value to their lives.
Steve Polsky
Founder and CEO
Juvo
1
2
3
http://www.mckinsey.com/global-themes/employment-andgrowth/how-digital-finance-could-boost-growth-in-emergingeconomies
http://www.mckinsey.com/global-themes/employment-andgrowth/how-digital-finance-could-boost-growth-in-emergingeconomies
http://www.gsma.com/newsroom/press-release/asia-pacificadd-600-million-new-mobile-subscribers-2020-finds-latestgsma-mobile-economy-study/
Issue 6 | 43

MIDDLE EAST TECHNOLOGY
The Power
of Graph
Wobi Plugs Into The Power Of Graph For
Insurance Price Comparison
Neo Technology’s CEO Emil Eifrem discusses the issues
Wobi, Israel’s best-known price comparison website
for pensions and insurance, is using graph database
technology to address
Graph databases have a growing reputation in the financial
services sector. That’s because, unlike most other ways
of looking at data, graph databases are designed from the
ground up to model and uncover relationships, which means
they can uncover patterns traditional representations such
as SQL tables can either never spot or take too long to
process. Analysts forecast wide take up as a result,.
Let’s immediately state that graph databases are not
appropriate for every financial sector computing problem.
There are transactional and analytical processing needs
within financial institutions that relational technology is still
pitch-perfect for, such as systems of record in HR or finance.
However, let’s look at one specific finance issue – serving
the price comparison market adequately. Price comparison
websites have become increasingly popular because of
the convenience they offer customers, set up to allow
consumers to compare numerous finance products, from
car loans to home insurance, all in one place. Consumers
can then evaluate the results to make an informed buying
decision. To stay ahead in the cut-throat world of finance
price comparison websites, the firm knows it needs to
provide a continuous stream of compelling ‘value offers,’
which can only be realistically done by analysing large
swathes of customer data, fast.
Price comparison turns out to be a very interesting example
of how graph database technology can come into its own
when an organisation is looking to get the most from
connected data out of large-scale datasets – which is what
one of our finance clients, Israeli-based insurance and
pensions leader Wobi, recently discovered.
With five years of successful trading behind it, Wobi is
already the best-known price comparison website of its
type in its market. With 500,000 customers and millions
of monthly visitors to its website, on the back of its swift
success, it is already looking to launch a banking and
finance comparison service later this year.
44 | Issue 6

MIDDLE EAST TECHNOLOGY
Wobi knew that to make its stamp on the industry it had to
be able to provide customers with ‘value offers’ every time.
To do that, it needed to create a detailed financial profile
of each customer, including their family status, insurance
policies, pensions, savings, and accounts. The Wobi team we
worked with also knew that drilling down into this knowledge
was not going to be easy without the right tools.
Big data challenge
Wobi ended up deciding its best approach was a single
database solution that would provide it with a granularlevel
understanding of its customers that would enable
it to outpace the competition. The team had to be able
to work with a data engine able to drill-down and provide
‘deep dives’ when needed on individual’s history in real.
However, the structure and type of files it had stored the
data in were a challenge to work with. Wobi holds its data
in a tree-like structure, which means that under each
customer hangs a wealth of information. Fine and good
design, but that results in often large files that need to be
extracted quickly and efficiently when requested.
Wobi started to try and solve these issues with an object
database approach, but that proved unsatisfactory. So
Wobi began looking at various database offerings – and
soon realised that the graph database approach was the
best option for working with these constraints while still
delivering the outcomes it wanted.
30 million relationships in constant view
“We are all about understanding the customer,” says the
fast-growing firm’s CTO, Shai Bentin. “To do that, we need an
easy way to describe our customers and build connections
between them and their information. With Neo4j, I had the
power to describe my data with relationships,” he told me.
“Describing a relationship is important,” Bentin added. “For
example, we get new information about pensions monthly.
To model this in an object-oriented way would be lengthy,
whereas with a graph database I have a relationship called
‘latest’, and a relationship called ‘previous’, and I can just do
a ‘select’ and get whatever I need.”
Issue 6 | 45

MIDDLE EAST TECHNOLOGY
Once it had settled on the graph database
model, Wobi opted to run with Neo4j, a
graph database. Neo4j is right at the centre
of Wobi’s network of 20 servers. Wobi has
a team of five people dedicated to graph
database development and testing work to
ensure reliable data is available where and
when it is needed fast.
But where graph database technology
is really proving its worth is tracking the
relationships that make data return value to a
comparison website. The database currently
runs around a million relationships a second
and is handling half a million customers
with an average of eight pensions, insurance
policies and products, a total of 30 million
relationships
.
As a result says Bentin, “We can look at the
customer’s account in such depth that we
can tell them they must have a water leak
somewhere because they have been paying
way over the average for their water every
month! We can also now easily see how to
suggest a customer move from, say, one
phone company to another, as the other
supplier would better suits their actual
expenditure,” he says.
Understanding the customer
What I appreciate about the Wobi story
is how clearly it shows the power of
understanding relationships in today’s
online business world.
It’s graph-powered, fine-detailed,
awareness of individual customers and their
requirements is fundamental to providing
the right kind of offers users of services like
Wobi seek.
Experiences like Wobi’s and others
who are starting to exploit the power of
graph databases underline how large the
contribution of graph databases for any
high-performance database need in the
financial sector could be.
And as finance is a sector where information
needs to be available at any time at all
customer contact points and to help the
customer, I think that really matters.
Emil Eifrem
CEO
Neo Technology
Emil Eifrem co-founder and CEO
of Neo Technology, the company
behind Neo4j, the world’s leading
graph database (http://neo4j.
com/)
46 | Issue 6

2016 AWARD WINNERS
Global Banking and Finance Review is privileged to honour those financial institutions who have achieved outstanding results and who stand out in
their particular area of expertise in the banking and finance industry.
Global Banking & Finance Review would like to congratulate the award winners and look forward to their continued success. The awards were
created to recognize companies of all sizes that are prominent in particular areas of expertise and excellence within the financial community. They
reflect the involvement of leading financial organizations and recognize the accomplishment, achievement, innovation, strategy, progressive and
motivating changes taking place within the financial sector.
Best STP Broker Africa 2016
Best Introducing Broker Program Africa 2016
Best Payments Processor Africa 2016
Best SME Bank Albania 2016
Fastest Growing Commercial Bank Albania 2016
Best Retail Bank Albania 2016
Best Insurance Company Albania 2016
Best Retail Bank Algeria 2016
Best Private Bank Andorra 2016
Best CSR Bank Andorra 2016
Best Customer Service Bank Angola 2016
Best Commercial Bank Angola 2016
Best Internet Bank Angola 2016
Best Insurance Company Angola 2016
Best New Investment Bank Angola 2016
Best Investment Company Angola 2016
Best Banking CEO Angola 2016 – Antonio Coutinho
Best Bank for Corporate Governance Angola 2016
Best Investment Bank Angola 2016
Best Cash Management Bank Argentina 2016
Best Trade Finance Bank Argentina 2016
Best Capital Markets Company Argentina 2016
Best Investment Management Team Argentina 2016
Best SME Bank Argentina 2016
Best Customer Service Financial Company Argentina 2016
Best Research House Argentina 2016
Best Trading Platform Argentina 2016
Fastest Growing Retail Bank Armenia 2016
Best Mobile Banking Application Armenia 2016
Best Corporate Bank Armenia 2016
Best Internet Bank Armenia 2016
Best Investor Relations Bank Armenia
Best Retail Bank Armenia 2016
Best Trade Finance Bank Armenia 2016
Best Customer Service Broker Asia 2016
Best Islamic Exchange Asia 2016
Best Introducing Broker Affiliate Program Asia 2016
Best Binary Options Broker Asia 2016
Best Trading Platform Asia 2016
Best New Investment Platform Asia 2016
Fastest Growing STP Broker Asia 2016
Best Aviation Leasing Company Asia 2016
Best Credit Insurer Asia Pacific 2016
Best Forex Execution Broker Asia-Pacific 2016
Fastest Growing STP Broker Asia Pacific 2016
Best Forex Education Provider Australasia 2016
Best Customer Service Bank Australia 2016
Most Innovative Stock Exchange Company Australia 2016
Best Private Bank Austria 2016
Best Life Insurance Company Azerbaijan 2016
Best Corporate Finance Advisory Azerbaijan 2016
Best Internet Bank Azerbaijan 2016
Best SME Bank Azerbaijan 2016
Best Retail Bank of Azerbaijan 2016
Fastest Growing Retail Bank Azerbaijan 2016
Best Microfinance Bank Azerbaijan 2016
Best Micro Finance Company Azerbaijan 2016
Best CSR Bank Bahrain 2016
Best Customer Service Bank Bahrain 2016
Best Retail Bank Bahrain 2016
Best Internet Bank Bahrain 2016
Best Islamic Banking Product (It’eman Account) Bahrain 2016
Best Islamic Retail Bank Bahrain 2016
Best Islamic Credit Card Program (Easy 36) Bahrain 2016
Best Islamic Leasing Advisory Provider Bahrain 2016
Best Electronic Payment Service Provider Bahrain 2016.
Best Asset Management Bank Bahrain 2016
Best Retail Bank Belarus 2016
Best Corporate Bank Belarus 2016
Best Trade Finance Bank Belgium 2016
Best Payments Solution Belgium 2016
Fastest Growing Business Bank Bolivia 2016
Best Mobile Banking Application Bolivia 2016
Best General Insurance Company Bolivia 2016
Best Asset Management Company Bolivia 2016
Best Microfinance Bank Bolivia 2016
Best Business Bank Bolivia 2016
Best Customer Service Bank Bolivia 2016
Best Retail Bank Bolivia 2016
Best Internet Bank Bosnia & Herzegovina 2016
Blackwell Global
Blackwell Global
Payment Express Ltd
Tirana Bank
Banka NBG Albania Sh.A
Fibank (First Investment Bank)
Sigal Uniqa
Trust Bank Algeria
Credit Andorra
Credit Andorra
Finibanco Angola
Banco De Fomento Angola
Banco Económico
Global Seguros
Banco Prestígio S.A
Quantum Global
Standard Bank Angola
Standard Bank Angola
Standard Bank Angola
Banco Santander Río S.A.
Banco Santander Río S.A.
Puente
Puente
Banco Macro
Portfolio Personal
Portfolio Personal
Puente
Armeconombank
“Areximbank-Gazprombank Group” CJSC
“Areximbank-Gazprombank Group” CJSC
“Areximbank-Gazprombank Group” CJSC
Inecobank CJSC
Anelik Bank CJSC
Ararat Bank
FBS Markets Inc.
Bursa Malaysia Berhad
Starfish FX
Starfish FX
Starfish FX
IGOFX
Firewood Global Ltd.
BOC Aviation
Atradius N.V.
GDMFX
Nico Financial NF Limited
Learn to Trade
Heritage Bank
The Sydney Stock Exchange
Erste Bank
Pasha Life
KPMG
AGBank
TuranBank
DemirBank
Amrahbank OJSC
AccessBank CJSC
VF AzerCredit
National Bank of Bahrain B.S.C
National Bank of Bahrain B.S.C
BBK
Bahrain Islamic Bank BSC
Khaleeji Commercial Bank
Bahrain Islamic Bank BSC
Khaleeji Commercial Bank
Ijara Management Company
Arab Financial Services Company
Gulf International Bank (GIB)
Belgazprombank
Belgazprombank
KBC Bank
Swift
Banco Bisa
Banco Ganadero S.A.
BISA Seguros y Reaseguros SA
BIM Asset Management
Banco Solidario S.A.
Banco Mercantil Santa Cruz
Banco Mercantil Santa Cruz
Banco Mercantil Santa Cruz
Nova Banka Ad Banja Luka

Best SME Bank Bosnia and Herzegovina 2016
Best Internet Bank Botswana
Best Investment Banking Botswana 2016
Best Foreign Exchange Bank Botswana 2016
Best Custodian Bank Botswana 2016
Most Innovative Commercial Bank Botswana 2016
Fastest Growing Corporate Bank Brazil 2016
Best Commercial Bank Brazil 2016
Best Agriculture Financing Bank Brazil 2016
Best Retail Bank Brazil 2016
Best Asset Management Bank Brazil 2016
Best Bank for Investor Relations Brazil 2016
Best Fixed Income House Brazil 2016
Fastest Growing Foreign Bank Brunei 2016
Best Credit Insurance Provider in Bulgaria 2016
Fastest Growing Treasury Bank Burkina Faso 2016
Best Trade Finance Bank Burkina Faso 2016
Best Treasury Bank Burkina Faso 2016
Best Internet Bank Cambodia 2016
Best CSR Bank Cambodia 2016
Best Mobile Banking Application Cambodia 2016
Fastest Growing Trade Finance Bank Cambodia 2016
Best Commercial Bank Cambodia 2016
Best Insurance Company Customer Service Cambodia 2016
Best Non-Life Insurance Company Cambodia 2016
Most Innovative Insurance Product Cambodia 2016
Best CSR Company Cambodia 2016
Best Telecommunications Company Cambodia 2016
Best Bank for Premier Banking Cambodia 2016
Best Retail Bank Canada 2016
Best Private Wealth Management Company Canada 2016
Best Insurance Company Cape Verde 2016
36one Asset Management (Pty) Ltd
Best Energy Broker Central and Eastern Europe 2016
Best New Asset Management Product (ABILS) Central & Eastern Europe 2016
Best Investment Bank Chile 2016
Best Bank for Loans Chile 2016
Best Infrastructure Company Chile 2016
Best AFP Chile 2016
Best Brokerage House Chile 2016
Best Internet Bank Chile 2016
Best Mobile Banking Chile 2016
Best CSR Bank Chile 2016
Best Customer Service Bank Chile 2016
Best CSR Bank China 2016
Best Foreign Bank China 2016
Best SME Bank China 2016
Best Green Bank China 2016
Most Innovative Banking Product (Enjoyable Life) China 2016
Best Trade Finance Bank China 2016
Best General Insurance Company Group China 2016
Best Wealth Management Bank China 2016
Best Forex Provider China 2016
Best New Asset Management Company China 2016
Best IB Program China 2016
Best Investor Relations Colombia 2016
Best Commercial Bank Colombia 2016
Best Banking Group Colombia 2016
Best Asset Management Company Colombia 2016
Best Mobile Payment Solution Provider Colombia 2016
Best Trade Finance Bank Congo 2016
Most Innovative Banking Initiative (Women Empowerment) Congo 2016
Best SME Bank Costa Rica 2016
Best Commercial Bank Costa Rica 2016
Most Innovative Bank Costa Rica 2016
Best Retail Bank Costa Rica 2016
Best SME Bank in Cote d’Ivoire 2016
Best Corporate Bank Côte d’Ivoire 2016
Best Investment Bank Croatia 2016
Best Private Bank Cyprus 2016
Best Fund Administrator Cyprus 2016
Fastest Growing Private Bank Czech Republic 2016
Best CSR Bank Czech Republic 2016
Best Mortgage Bank Czech Republic 2016
Best Non-Life Insurance Company Czech Republic 2016
Best Private Bank Czech Republic 2016
Best Pension Fund Provider Czech Republic 2016
Best Investment Management Company Czech Republic 2016
Best SME Bank Democratic Republic of Congo 2016
Best Eco Bank Democratic Republic of Congo 2016
Best Commercial Bank in Democratic Republic of Congo 2016
Best Private Bank Denmark 2016
Best Payment Solutions Provider Company Denmark 2016
Best Commercial Bank Dominican Republic 2016
Best Customer Service Bank Dominican Republic 2016
Best Brokerage House Dominican Republic 2016
Best It Banking Solutions Provider East Africa 2016
Fastest Growing Retail Bank Egypt 2016
Best Non- Life Insurance Company Egypt 2016
Best Islamic Retail Bank Egypt 2016
Best Leasing Company Egypt 2016
Best Corporate Bank Egypt 2016
Fastest Growing Cash Management Bank Egypt 2016
Fastest Growing Corporate Bank Egypt 2016
Sparkasse Bank dd
Barclays Bank-Botswana
Stanbic Bank Botswana
Stanbic Bank Botswana
Stanbic Bank Botswana
First National Bank of Botswana Limited
Banco Caixa Geral Brasil
Banco Do Brasil S.A.
Rabobank
Banco Bradesco
BNP Paribas
Banco BMG
Sparta Fundos
Maybank Brunei
Coface Bulgaria
Ecobank Burkina
Ecobank Burkina
Bank of Africa Burkina Faso
Hong Leong Bank (Cambodia) Plc.
Maybank (Cambodia) Plc
Maybank (Cambodia) Plc
ABA Bank (Advanced Bank of Asia Ltd)
Canadia Bank
Forte Insurance (Cambodia) Plc
Forte Insurance (Cambodia) Plc
Emcare – Forte Insurance (Cambodia) Plc
Smart Axiata Co., Ltd
Smart Axiata Co., Ltd
Vattanac Bank
BMO Bank of Montreal
Desjardins Private Wealth Management
Garantia Seguros
Best New Hedge Fund Product (36one Hedge Portfolio Class S) Cayman Islands 2016
42 Financial Services A.S.
Phoenix CRetro Reinsurance Company Limited
Banchile Inversiones
Banco Santander Chile
Intervial Chile S.A.
Cuprum AFP
Banchile Inversiones
Banco De Chile
Banco De Chile
Scotiabank
Scotiabank
DBS Bank (China) Limited
DBS Bank (China) Limited
Ping An Bank
Industrial Bank Co., Ltd
Industrial Bank Co., Ltd
Industrial Bank Co., Ltd
People’s Insurance Company (Group) Of China Limited
Standard Chartered Bank
BMO Capital Markets
Everence Financial Group Corporation (EFG Corporation)
Juno Markets
Grupo Aval
Banco De Bogota
Grupo Aval
Grupo Sura
Veritran
Standard Bank DRC
Finca
Banco Improsa Sa
Banco Lafise
Banco Lafise
Banco Lafise
Versus Bank
Societe Generale de Banques en Côte d’Ivoire
Zagrebacka Banka D.D.
Bank of Cyprus
Alter Domus
Raiffeisenbank
Ceska Sporitelna, A.S.
Ceska Sporitelna, A.S.
Allianz Pojišťovna
Ceskoslovenska Obchodni Banka, A. S.
Kb Pension Company
Conseq
Procredit Bank Congo S. A
Procredit Bank Congo S. A
Rawbank Sa
SEB Denmark
Coinify
Banreservas
Banreservas
Alpha
PIO-TECH Solutions
Egyptian Gulf Bank S.A.E
Arab Misr Insurance Group (Gig)
Faisal Islamic Bank of Egypt
ORIX Leasing
QNB Alahli
Barclays Bank
Barclays Bank

Call For Entries
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FINANCIAL ORGANIZATIONS
INVITING
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ACHIEVEMENTS
2017
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Fastest Growing Trade Finance Bank Egypt 2016
Best Investment Bank Egypt 2016
Best Retail Bank Egypt 2016
Best SME Bank Egypt 2016
Best Bank for Trade Finance Activity Egypt 2016
Best Bank for Treasury Activities Egypt 2016
Best Corporate Finance Advisory Service Egypt 2016
Best Investment Banking Company Egypt 2016
Best Brokerage House Egypt 2016
Best Islamic Commercial Bank Egypt 2016
Best Retail Bank El Salvador 2016
Best Commercial Bank El Salvador 2016
Best Asset Management Company Estonia 2016
Best Credit Insurance Company Estonia 2016
Best Pension Fund Estonia 2016
Fastest Growing Retail Bank Ethiopia 2016
Best Customer Service Bank Ethiopia 2016
Best Internet Bank Ethiopia 2016
Best Trading Application Eurasian Economic Union 2016
Best Credit Insurer Europe 2016
Best Multi-Asset Liquidity Provider Europe 2016
Best Social Trading Platform Europe 2016
Best White Label Solutions Provider Europe 2016
Best European Long Term Growth Fund 2016
Best Online Trading Academy Europe 2016
Best Binary Options Broker Europe 2016
Best Core Banking Solutions Provider Europe 2016
Best Asset Management Company Finland 2016
Best Commercial Bank Gambia 2016
Best Internet Bank Gambia 2016
Best Banking Technology Gambia 2016
Best Finance Company for CSR Initiatives GCC 2016
Fastest Growing Islamic Finance Company in GCC 2016
Best Finance Smart Solutions Provider in GCC 2016
Best Asset Manager GCC 2016
Best Digital Bank Georgia 2016
Best Mobile Banking Application Georgia 2016
Best Corporate Finance Advisory Georgia 2016
Best Investment Bank Georgia 2016
Best Investment Brokerage Company Georgia 2016
Best Retail Bank Georgia 2016
Fastest Growing Corporate Bank Georgia 2016
Best Bank for Social Media Germany 2016
Fastest Growing M&A Advisory Germany 2016
Best CSR Bank Germany 2016
Best M&A Advisory Germany 2016
Best Boutique Merchant Bank Germany 2016
Best New Asset Management Company Ghana 2016
Best SME Finance Company Ghana 2016
Best Corporate Finance Advisory House Ghana 2016
Best Investment Banking Company Ghana 2016
Best Research House Ghana 2016
Best Corporate Bank Ghana 2016
Best Customer Service Bank Ghana 2016
Best E-Commerce Bank Ghana 2016
Fastest Growing Trade Finance Bank Ghana 2016
Fastest Growing Health Insurance Company Ghana 2016
Best Low Latency Connectivity Solutions Provider 2016.
Best Corporate Governance Bank Greece 2016
Fastest Growing Asset Management Company Greece 2016
Fastest Growing Mutual Funds Provider Greece 2016
Best Retail Bank Grenada 2016
Best Customer Service Bank Grenada 2016
Best Retail Bank Guinea 2016
Best CSR Bank Guyana 2016
Best Commercial Bank Guyana 2016
Best SME Bank Honduras 2016
Best General Insurance Company Hong Kong 2016
Fastest Growing Fund Manager Hong Kong 2016
Best Corporate Bank Hong Kong 2016
Best Funds Management Hong Kong 2016
Best Trade Finance Bank Hungary 2016
Best Internet Bank Hungary 2016
Best Woman Banking CEO Hungary 2016 – Ms. Éva Hegedüs
Best Investment Bank Iceland 2016
Best Commercial Bank Iceland 2016
Best CSR Bank Iceland 2016
Best Internet Bank Iceland 2016
Fastest Growing Commercial Bank Indonesia 2016
Fastest Growing Retail Bank Indonesia 2016
Best CSR Bank Indonesia 2016
Best Bank for Priority Banking Services Indonesia 2016
Best Microfinance Bank Indonesia 2016
Best SME Bank Indonesia 2016
Best Treasury Management Bank Indonesia 2016
Best Institutional Broker Indonesia 2016
Best General Insurance Company Indonesia 2016
Best Forex Broker Indonesia 2016
Best Mutual Funds Provider Indonesia 2016
Best Reinsurance Company Indonesia 2016
Best New Life Insurance Company Indonesia 2016
Best Family Takaful Provider Indonesia 2016
Best Bank for Social Media Indonesia 2016
Best Bank for Co-Branded Credit Cards (Permataherocard) Indonesia 2016
Best Islamic Retail Bank Indonesia 2016
Best Corporate Bank Israel 2016
Barclays Bank
Arab African International Bank
QNB Alahli
QNB Alahli
QNB Alahli
QNB Alahli
The Concord Group
EFG Hermes
EFG Hermes
Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank (ADIB)
Banco Agrícola
Banco Agrícola
LHV Asset Management
Kredex Credit Insurance Ltd
LHV Asset Management
Berhan International Bank S.C.
Zemen Bank S.C.
Nib International Bank
Libertex
Atradius N.V.
Saxo Bank
Saxo Bank
Saxo Bank
Carlisle Management Company
Academy of Financial Trading
IQ Option
Profile Software
Helsinki Capital Partners
Guaranty Trust Bank (GTBank)
Guaranty Trust Bank (GTBank)
Guaranty Trust Bank (GTBank)
aafaq
aafaq
aafaq
United Securities
JSC BasisBank
JSC BasisBank
Galt & Taggart
Galt & Taggart
Galt & Taggart
JSC Liberty Bank
Pasha Bank
Fidor Bank
Berenberg
GLS Gemeinschaftsbank eG
IEG Investment Banking Group
Acxit Capital Partners
Nordea Capital Limited
Beige Capital Savings & Loan
Strategic Hedge Capital
Strategic Hedge Capital
Strategic Hedge Capital
Zenith Bank (Ghana) Limited
Zenith Bank (Ghana) Limited
Zenith Bank (Ghana) Limited
BSIC GHANA LTD (SAHEL SAHARA BANK)
Acacia Health Insurance Company
Gold-I Ltd
National Bank Of Greece S.A.
Alpha Trust
Alpha Trust
Republic Bank Grenada Limited
Republic Bank Grenada Limited
Societe Generale de Banques
Republic Bank (Guyana) Limited
Republic Bank (Guyana) Limited
Banco Del País
AIG Insurance Hong Kong Limited
Gen 2 Partners
United Overseas Bank (UOB Hong Kong)
BOCI-Prudential Asset Management Limited
KBC Bank
Gránit Bank Zrt
Gránit Bank Zrt
Kvika Bank
Landsbankinn Hf.
Landsbankinn Hf.
Landsbankinn Hf.
BNP Paribas Indonesia
Pt Bank Maybank
Standard Chartered Bank
ANZ
Pt Bank Rakyat Indonesia (Persero) Tbk
OCBC NISP
Bank DBS
Maybank Kim Eng
Pt Asuransi Axa Indonesia
Finex
Pt Mandiri Manajemen Investasi
Pt. Reasuransi Internasional Indonesia (Reindo)
Pt Asuransi Jiwa BCA (BCA Life)
Pt Sun Life Financial Indonesia
Permata Bank
Permata Bank
Permata Bank
Bank Hapoalim

Best Retail Bank Israel 2016
Best Equity House Israel 2016
Best Bank for Social Media Italy 2016
Most Innovative Banking Technology Italy 2016
Best CSR Bank Jamaica 2016
Best Retail Bank Jamaica 2016
Best Corporate Bank Jamaica 2016
Best SME Bank Jamaica 2016
Best Life Insurance Company Jamaica 2016
Best Mobile Banking Application Jamaica 2016
Best Banking Product (Video Teller Machine- VTM) Jamaica 2016
Best New Financial Advisory Firm Japan 2016
Best Government & Infrastructure Financing Bank Jordan 2016
Best SME Bank Jordan 2016
Fastest Growing Retail Bank Jordan 2016
Best Bank for Premium Banking Jordan 2016
Best Islamic Bank Jordan 2016
Best Islamic Banking CEO Jordan 2016 – Mr. Sami Al-Afghani
Best CSR Islamic Bank Jordan 2016
Best Leasing Company Jordan 2016
Best Project Finance Bank Jordan 2016
Best Co-Branded Credit Card
(Visa Signature Cobranded Card with Qatar Airways) Jordan 2016
Best Trade Finance Bank Jordan 2016
Best IT Banking Solutions Provider Jordan 2016
Best Corporate Bank Kazakhstan 2016
Fastest Growing Corporate Bank of Kazakhstan 2016
Best Internet Bank Kazakhstan 2016
Best SME Bank Kazakhstan 2016
Fastest Growing Retail Bank Kazakhstan 2016
Best E-Commerce Bank Kazakhstan 2016
Fastest Growing Non-Life Insurance Company Kazakhstan 2016
Best Agribusiness Bank Kenya 2016
Fastest Growing Cash Management Bank Kenya 2016
Best Microfinance Bank Kenya 2016
Fastest Growing SME Bank Kenya 2016
Fastest Growing Islamic Corporate Bank Kenya 2016
Fastest Growing Islamic Retail Bank Kenya 2016
Best Reinsurance Company Kenya 2016
Fastest Growing Reinsurance Company Kenya 2016
Best Trade Finance Bank Kenya 2016
Best Commercial Bank Kenya 2016
Best Mobile Banking Kenya 2016
Best Islamic Retail Bank Kenya 2016
Best Customer Service Bank Kenya 2016
Best Internet Bank Kosovo
Best CSR Bank Kosovo 2016
Fastest Growing Commercial Bank Kosovo 2016
Fastest Growing Investment Bank Kuwait 2016
Best CSR Company Kuwait 2016
Best Retail Bank Kuwait 2016
Best Loyalty Program Kuwait 2016
Best Brokerage House Kuwait 2016
Best General Insurance Company Kuwait 2016
Best Life Insurance Company Kyrgyzstan 2016
Best Retail Bank Kyrgyzstan 2016
Fastest Growing Trade Finance Bank Kyrgyzstan 2016
Best Commercial Bank Kyrgyzstan 2016
Best Retail Bank Lao People’s Democratic Republic 2016
Best Non-Life Insurance Company Laos 2016
Best SME Bank Laos 2016
Fastest Growing Commercial Bank Laos 2016
Best Internet Bank Laos 2016
Best PPP Project Latin America 2016
Best FX and Binary Customer Support Company Latin America 2016
Best Government & Infrastructure Financing Bank Latin America 2016
Best Retail Bank Latvia 2016
Best Investment Bank Latvia 2016
Best Credit Insurance Company Lebanon 2016
Best Health Insurance Provider Lebanon 2016
Fastest Growing Commercial Bank Lebanon 2016
Best Bank for Investor Relations Lebanon 2016
Best Asset Management Bank Lebanon 2016
Best Islamic Corporate Bank Lebanon 2016
Best Strategic Advisory Firm Lebanon 2016
Best Retail Bank Lesotho 2016
Best Corporate Bank Lesotho 2016
Best Internet Bank in Lesotho
Best Retail Bank Liberia 2016
Best Internet Bank Liberia 2016
Best Wealth Management Company Liechtenstein 2016
Best Commercial Bank Lithuania 2016
Best SME Bank Lithuania 2016
Best Corporate Bank Luxembourg 2016
Fastest Growing Private Bank Luxembourg 2016
Best Retail Bank Luxembourg 2016
Fastest Growing Asset Management Company Luxembourg 2016
Best Fund Management Luxembourg 2016
Best Trade Finance Company Luxembourg 2016
Best Retail Bank Macau 2016
Best Corporate Bank Macedonia 2016
Best Banking CEO Macedonia 2016 – Mr. Vladimir Eftimoski
Best Retail Bank Macedonia 2016
Best Corporate Bank Madagascar 2016
Best Retail Bank Madagascar 2016
Bank Hapoalim
Bank Leumi le-Israel B.M.
ING Bank
FinecoBank
ScotiaFoundation (Scotiabank)
ScotiaFoundation (Scotiabank)
FirstCaribbean International Bank (Jamaica) Limited
National Commercial Bank Jamaica Limited (JNCB)
NCB Insurance Company
First Global Bank Ltd – Jamaica
First Global Bank Ltd – Jamaica
Business Bank Group Ltd
Standard Chartered Bank
Capital Bank of Jordan
Arab Jordan Investment Bank
Arab Jordan Investment Bank
Jordan Dubai Islamic Bank
Jordan Dubai Islamic Bank
Jordan Dubai Islamic Bank
Comprehensive Leasing Company
Housing Bank for Trade & Finance
Housing Bank for Trade & Finance
Housing Bank for Trade & Finance
PIO-TECH Solutions
Kazkommertsbank
Qazaq Banki
Kazkommertsbank
JSC Halyk Bank of Kazakhstan
ForteBank JSC
JSC Alfa-Bank
Kazakhinstrakh JSC
Transnational Bank Ltd
Ecobank
KWFT Bank
Jamii Bora Bank Ltd
Gulf African Bank
Gulf African Bank
Kenya Reinsurance Company
Zep Re (PTA Reinsurance Company)
Standard Chartered Bank Kenya
Equity Bank Kenya Limited
National Bank of Kenya
National Bank of Kenya
National Bank of Kenya
Banka Ekonomike
BPB Bank
BPP Bank
Warba Bank
Ali Abdulwahab Al Mutawa Commercial
Gulf Bank
Gulf Bank
EFG Hermes
AIG MEA Limited – Kuwait
Jubilee Insurance Company
Demir Kyrgyz International Bank CJSC
CJSC BTA Bank
OJSC Optima Bank
International Commercial Bank Lao Limited
Lao-Viet Insurance Company
BFL (Banque Franco-Lao Ltd)
Joint Development Bank
Banque Pour Le Commerce Exterieur Lao Public (BCEL)
Rustas de Lima
GDMFX
Groupo Financiro Interacciones
SEB Latvia
ABLV Bank, AS
The Lebanese Credit Insurer Sal (LCI)
Fidelity Assurance & Reinsurance CoS Sal
Bank Audi Sal
Bank Audi Sal
BLOMINVEST Bank S.A.L
Arab Finance House (Islamic Bank) S.A.L
Creed Capital
Standard Lesotho Bank
Standard Lesotho Bank
Nedbank
Guaranty Trust Bank Liberia Limited
Guaranty Trust Bank Liberia Limited
Kaiser Partner
DNB bankas
Siauliu bankas
Banque Internationale à Luxembourg SA
DNB
Banque Internationale à Luxembourg SA
Pure Capital S.A.
Carlisle Management Company
NORTHSTAR Europe S.A.
Banco Nacional Ultramarino (BNU)
Stopanska Banka A.D. Bitola
Stopanska Banka A.D. Bitola
Stopanska Banka A.D. Bitola
Banque SBM-Madagascar
Bank of Africa-Madagascar

Mr. Muhammad Hanif, CEO, PT Mandiri Manajemen Investasi
Steve Hansen, Chief Operating Officer for Starfish FX and Dav Liew, Chief of
Strategic Marketing in Asia for Starfish FX
(left to right)
Kiril Tsenkov, Deputy Development Director, GDMFX

Mr. Bolaji Ayodele, Managing Director, Guaranty Trust Bank (Gambia) Limited and
Mr. Dodou Bojang, Head Corporate Affairs, Guaranty Trust Bank (Gambia) Limited
(left to right)
Mr. Thi Huy Thanh, Foreign Exchange Manager, Saigon Commercial Bank,
Mr. Nguyen Duc Hieu, Deputy General Director, Saigon Commercial Bank
and Mr. Phan Huy, Money Market Manager, Saigon Commercial Bank
(left to right)
Ms. Kristine Umali, Commercial Attache and Director, Embassy of the Philippines
Ambassador Evan P. Garcia of the Republic of the Philippines in the United
Kingdom
Gilda E. Pico, President and CEO, Landbank of Philippines
Ms. Catherine Rowena B. Villanueva, First Vice President, Corporate Affairs Dept,
Landbank of Philippines
Jocelyn Cabreza, Executive Vice President, Landbank of Philippines
Phil Fothergill, Journalist and Video Producer
(left to right)

Fastest Growing SME Bank Malawi 2016
Best Cash Management Bank Malawi 2016
Best Customer Service Bank Malawi 2016
Best Internet Bank Malawi 2016
Best Trade Finance Bank Malawi 2016
Best Customer Service Insurance Company Malawi 2016
Best General Insurance Company Malawi 2016
Best Asset Management Company Malawi 2016
Best Life Insurance Company Malawi 2016
Best Commercial Bank Malawi 2016
Best Investment Bank Malawi 2016
Best Retail Banking Products Malawi 2016
Best Retail Bank Malawi 2016
Best SME Bank Malawi 2016
Best Commercial Bank Malaysia 2016
Best SME Bank Malaysia 2016
Best Institutional Broker Malaysia 2016
Best General Insurance Company Malaysia 2016
Best Islamic Asset Management Company Malaysia 2016
Best Internet Bank Malaysia 2016
Best Financial Advisory Firm Malaysia 2016
Fast Growing SME Bank Malaysia 2016
Best New Payment Solutions Provider Malaysia 2016
Best CSR Bank Malaysia 2016
Best Investor Relations Bank Malaysia 2016
Best Islamic Microfinance Bank Malaysia 2016
Best Life Insurance Company Malaysia 2016
Best Customer Service Bank Malaysia 2016
Best Non-Life Insurance Provider Maldives 2016
Best Takaful General Insurance Company Maldives 2016
Best Fund Administrator Malta 2016
Best Customer Service Bank Malta 2016
Best SME Bank Mauritius 2016
Fasted Growing General Insurance Company Mauritius 2016
Best Investment Bank Mauritius 2016
Best Private Bank Mauritius 2016
Best Corporate Advisory Service Provider Mauritius 2016
Best E-Commerce Bank Mauritius 2016
Best Foreign Commercial Bank Mauritius 2016
Best Private Equity Fund Administrator Mauritius 2016
Best Retail Bank Mauritius 2016
Fastest Growing Private Bank Mauritius 2016
Best Bank for International Banking Services Mauritius 2016
Fastest Growing Islamic Bank Mena 2016
Fastest Growing Commercial Bank Mexico 2016
Best Forex Bank Mexico 2016
Best Derivatives Broker Mexico 2016
Best Leasing Company Mexico 2016
Best SME Financing Company Mexico
Best Foreign Trade Finance Bank Mexico 2016
Best Banking CEO Mexico 2016 – Dr. Gerardo Salazar
Best SME Bank Mexico 2016
Best Asset Management Company Mexico 2016
Best Islamic Real Estate Financing Company Middle East 2016
Best Cash Management Bank Middle East 2016
Best Trade Finance Bank Middle East 2016
Best Islamic Banking Technology Provider Middle East and Africa 2016
Best Non-Life Insurance Company Moldova 2016
Best Commercial Bank of Moldova 2016
Fastest Growing Corporate Bank Moldova 2016
Most Innovative Bank Moldova 2016
Best Banking Product (Transfer P2p) Moldova 2016
Best Health Insurance in Mongolia 2016
Fastest Growing General Insurance Company Mongolia 2016
Best Internet Bank Mongolia 2016
Best SME Bank Mongolia 2016
Best Commercial Bank Mongolia 2016
Fastest Growing Commercial Bank Mongolia 2016
Best Retail Bank Mongolia 2016
Best New SME Fund Raising Company Mongolia 2016
Best Insurance Company Montenegro 2016
Best Equity House Morocco 2016
Best Non-Life Insurance Provider Morocco 2015
Best Custodian Bank in Morocco 2016
Best New Corporate Bank Mozambique 2016
Best Customer Service Bank Mozambique 2016
Most Innovative Retail Banking Mozambique 2016
Best Agribusiness Bank Mozambique 2016
Fastest Growing Retail Bank Mozambique 2016
Best Internet Bank Mozambique 2016
Best Mobile Banking App Mozambique 2016
Best Pension Fund CEO Mozambique 2016
Best Corporate Bank Myanmar 2016
Most Innovative Retail Bank Myanmar 2016
Best Corporate Bank Namibia 2016
Best Customer Service Bank Namibia 2016
Best Retail Bank Namibia 2016
Best Project Finance Bank Namibia 2016
Best Corporate Finance Advisory Company Namibia
Best Commodities Finance Bank Netherlands 2016
Best Real Estate Bank Netherlands 2016
Best Private Bank Netherlands 2016
Best SME Bank Netherlands 2016
Best Customer Service Bank Netherland 2016
Most Innovative Online Bank Netherland 2016
Opportunity Bank
First Merchant Bank
Nedbank
Nedbank
Ecobank
Charter Insurance Co. Ltd.
United General Insurance Company Limited
Nico Asset Managers Limited
Vanguard Life Assurance Company Limited
Eco bank
CDH Investment Bank
FDH Bank Limited
FDH Bank Limited
FDH Bank Limited
HSBC Bank Malaysia Berhad
OCBC Bank Malaysia Berhad
Maybank Kim Eng
Zurich Insurance Malaysia Berhad
CIMB-Principal Islamic Asset Management
Hong Leong Islamic Bank Berhad
Standard Financial Adviser Sdn Bhd
Malayan Banking Berhad
Asiapay (M) Sdn Bhd
Bank Muamalat Malaysia Berhad
Hong Leong Bank Berhad
Bank Rakyat
Gibraltar BSN Life Berhad
United Overseas Bank
Allied Insurance Company of the Maldives
Amana Takaful Maldives Plc
Valletta Fund Services Limited
FCM Bank
MauBank Ltd
Jubilee Insurance Mauritius Limited
Afrasia Bank
Afrasia Bank
ABAX
SBM Bank (Mauritius) Ltd
Barclays Bank
ABAX
SBM Bank (Mauritius) Ltd
Bank One Limited
ABC Banking Corporation
Kuwait International Bank
Investabank S.A
Monex Bank
DERFIN S.A. DE C.V.
UNIFIN FINANCIERA SAB de CV SOFOM ENR
Financiamiento Progresemos
BANCOMEXT
Groupo Financiro Interacciones
Groupo Financiro Interacciones
Sura Asset Management
Qatar First Bank
National Bank of Abu Dhabi (NBAD)
National Bank of Abu Dhabi (NBAD)
ICS Financial Systems
Moldasig
CB ‘Moldova-Agroindbank’ SA
JSCB “EXIMBANK-Gruppo Veneto Banca”
BC Moldindconbank SA
BC Moldindconbank SA
Bodi Insurance LLC
Soyombo Daatgal
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Trade and Development Bank of Mongolia
National Investment Bank
Khan Bank
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Ecobank Mozambique Sa
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CB Bank
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Windhoek Bank
Nedbank Namibia Limited
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Standard Bank Namibia
IJG Securities
ABN AMRO
ABN AMRO
ING Private Bank Netherlands
ING Private Bank Netherlands
Knab
Knab

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Best Cash Management Bank Philippines 2016
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Best Foreign Exchange Bank Qatar 2016
Best Premium Banking Services Provider Qatar 2016
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Best CSR Bank Qatar 2016
Fastest Growing Islamic Private Banking Company Qatar 2016
Best Corporate Bank Qatar 2016
Best Digital Bank Romania 2016
Best Insurance Company Romania 2016
Best Corporate Governance Bank in Russia
Best Customer Service Bank Russia 2016
Best Investment Bank Russia 2016
Best SME Bank Russia 2016
Best Mortgage Bank Russia 2016
Best Internet Bank Russia 2016
Rabobank
Rabobank
EVI Global Markets
Banco Ficohsa Nicaragua, S.A
Banco Ficohsa Nicaragua, S.A
Zenith Bank
First Bank of Nigeria Limited
First Bank of Nigeria Limited
First Bank of Nigeria Limited
Union Bank of Nigeria Plc
Diamond Bank Plc
Unity Bank Plc.
Guaranty Trust Bank Plc
Guaranty Trust Bank Plc
Finca Microfinance Bank Limited
Standbic IBTC Asset Management
Standbic IBTC Asset Management
FBN Insurance
Custodian and Allied Plc
Jaiz Bank Plc
Ecobank
New Prudential Mortgage Bank
Fine and Country West Africa
SEB Asset Management
BFX Baron Forex Education & Consulting
BMO Capital Markets
National Bank of Oman
Bank Sohar
National Life and General Insurance Co, SAOC
National Life and General Insurance Co, SAOC
Alizz Islamic Bank
NBAD Oman
AXA Insurance Gulf, Oman
Bank Dhofar
Bank Dhofar
Bank Dhofar
Macro Software Systems LLC
Allbank Corp
Banco General
MMG Bank Corporation
BBVA
Puente
Puente
Banco Continental
Banco Continental
BCP
AFP Integra
Pacifico Seguros
Sura Asset Management Perú
Ericsson
Mibanco
Philippine Savings Bank
First Metro Investment Corporation
LANDBANK of the Philippines
Unionbank of The Philippines
China Banking Corp
LANDBANK of the Philippines
CTBC Bank
China Banking Corp
China Banking Corp
Philippine National Bank
China Banking Corp
CTBC Bank
Robinsons Land Corporation
Robinsons Land Corporation
PKO Bank Polski
PKO Bank Polski
PKO Bank Polski
easyMarkets
Deutsche Bank Polska
Millennium bcp
Banco de Investimento Global, S.A. (BiG)
Banco Português de Investimento (BPI)
Banco Santander Totta
Banco Finantia
Banco Finantia
Banco Finantia
Deutsche Bank Ag, Sucursal Portugal
Banco Invest
Banco BNI Europa
Qatar Islamic Insurance
Qatar First Bank
QNB
Al Khalij Commercial Bank (Al Khaliji) Q.S.C.
Qatar Islamic Insurance
Barwa Bank
Qatar First Bank
Mashreq Qatar
Garanti Bank S.A.
Allianz-Tiriac Asigurari
BNP Paribas
AO UniCredit Bank
Otkritie Bank
Vozrozhdenie Bank
Bank Saint-Petersburg
Promsvyazbank

Mr. Bui Trung Kien, Deputy General Director, ABBANK
Mr. Rafael Moreno Valle, Chairman & CEO of Financiamiento Progresemos
Mr. Rodrigo Lebois, UNIFIN Founder and President

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Best Project Finance Bank Russia 2016
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Best Bank for Investor Relations Russia 2016
Best New Online Bank Russia 2016
Most Innovative Banking Initiative “W-Initiative “ Rwanda 2016
Best Internet Bank Rwanda 2016
Best Insurance Company Rwanda 2016
Best Micro Finance Bank Rwanda 2016
Best Retail Bank Rwanda 2016
Best Commercial Bank Rwanda 2016
Best CSR Bank Rwanda 2016
Best Customer Service Bank Rwanda 2016
Best SME Bank Rwanda 2016
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Best Bank for Social Media Channels Saudi Arabia 2016
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Best Mobile Banking Application Saudi Arabia 2016
Best Private Bank Saudi Arabia 2016
Best Finance Comparison Website Saudi Arabia 2016
Best Health Insurance Company Saudi Arabia 2016
Best Wealth Management Product (Al Waed Fund) Saudi Arabia 2016
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Best Corporate Finance Advisory Senegal 2016
Best Insurance Company Serbia 2016
Best XSR Bank Serbia 2016
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Best Foreign Bank Seychelles 2016
Best Retail Bank Sierra Leone 2016
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Best Insurance Product (AXA Optimus) Singapore 2016
Most Innovative Online Banking Application Singapore 2016
Best Boutique Private Bank Singapore 2016
Best Digital Customer Engagement Program Singapore 2016
Best Mobile Trading App Singapore 2016
Best Online Trading Platform Singapore 2016
Best Corporate Bank Slovakia 2016
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Best Commercial Bank Slovenia 2016
Fastest Growing Commercial Bank Slovenia 2016
Best Retail Bank South Africa 2016
Best Private Bank South Africa 2016
Best Asset Manager CEO South Africa 2016- Mr. Mothobi Seseli
Best Emerging Payments Company South Africa 2016
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Best New Forex Broker South Africa 2016
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Best Private Equity Firm South Africa 2016
Best Fixed Income Fund Management Company South Africa 2016
Best Corporate Finance Advisory South Africa 2016
Best Securities Broker South America 2016
Best Company CEO South East Asia 2016 (Mr. Aloke Lohia)
Fastest Growing IB Program South East Asia 2016
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Best Project Finance Bank South Korea 2016
Best Commercial Bank South Korea 2016
Best Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development Southeast Asia 2016
Best Bank for Social Responsibility Southeast Asia 2016
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Best Home Finance Bank Spain 2016
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Most Innovative Retail Bank Spain 2016
Best Broker Spain 2016
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Best Home Finance Bank Sri Lanka 2016
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Best Insurance Company for CSR in Sri Lanka 2016
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Most Innovative ATM Platform Sri Lanka 2016
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Best Islamic SME Leasing & Finance Company Sri Lanka 2016
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Fastest Growing Commercial Bank Sri Lanka 2016
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Fastest Growing Finance Company Sri Lanka 2016
Best Micro Finance Service Provider Sri Lanka 2016
Best Telecommunication Company-Sri Lanka 2016
Most Innovative Holding Group Sri Lanka 2016
Best Insurance Broker Sri Lanka 2016
Best Corporate Bank Suriname 2016
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ING Commercial Bank Russia
JSCB Avangard
Alfa-Bank
Credit Bank of Moscow
Touch Bank (Part of OTP Group)
Access Bank Rwanda
Ecobank
Soras Group
Unguka Bank
Cogebanque
Bank of Kigali
Bank of Kigali
I&M Bank (Rwanda) Limited
Banque Populaire du Rwanda Ltd
Al Rajhi Bank
Arab National Bank
Al Yusr Leasing & Financing
The National Commercial Bank
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Banque Saudi Fransi
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Bank Aljazira
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Bupa Arabia
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Aljazira Takaful
The Saudi Investment Bank
Sedco Capital
Impaxis Capital
Generali Osiguranje Srbija
Komercijalna Banka
Dunav Voluntary Pension Fund Management Company
Sacos Life Assurance Company Ltd
Barclays Bank Seychelles Limited
Guaranty Trust Bank (SL) Ltd
OCBC Bank
IG
AXA Singapore
ANZ Banking Group Limited
Bordier & CIE
ANZ Banking Group Limited
OCBC Securities Private Limited
OCBC Securities Private Limited
VUB Bank
VUB Bank
SKB banka d.d.
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Standard Bank
Investec
Argon Asset Management
Call Pay
Call Pay
Learn to Trade
HotForex
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Sasfin
Sasfin
Sasfin
Credicorp Capital
Indorama Venture Public Company Limited
IGOFX
Tradesto Corporation
MFX Broker
Korea Development Bank
KEB Hana Bank -Han Financial Group
Vietnam Bank for Agriculture & Rural Development (Agribank)
Vietnam Bank for Agriculture & Rural Development (Agribank)
EFA Group
Banco Popular Espanol Sa
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Activotrade Valores
Inversis
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NDB Bank
HDFC Bank
Seylan Bank
Habib Bank
AIA Insurance Lanka Plc
AIA Insurance Lanka Plc
Sampath Bank Plc
Sampath Bank Plc
Nations Trust Bank Plc
Commercial Bank of Ceylon Plc
NDB Investment Bank
Al-Falaah, Islamic Business Unit of LOLC Finance PLC
Al-Falaah, Islamic Business Unit of LOLC Finance PLC
Pan Asia Banking Corporation Plc
Pan Asia Banking Corporation Plc
Kanrich Finance
Kanrich Finance
Sri Lanka Telecom Plc
Sunshine Holdings Plc
Senaratne Insurance Brokers (Pvt) Limited
Republic Bank (Suriname) N.V.
Hakrinbank N.V

Best Digital Bank Swaziland 2016
Best Investor Relation Bank Sweden 2016
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Best Fund Manager in FoHF Switzerland 2016
Fastest Growing Commercial Bank Switzerland 2016
Best Commodity Trade Finance Advisor Switzerland 2016
Best Commercial Bank Taiwan 2016
The Best Internet Bank- Taiwan 2016
Best Retail Bank Taiwan 2016
Best Leasing Company Taiwan 2016
Best Non-Life Insurance Company Taiwan 2016
Fastest Growing Corporate Bank Taiwan 2016
Fastest Growing Retail Bank Taiwan 2016
Fastest Growing SME Bank Taiwan 2016
Best Trade Finance Bank Taiwan 2016
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Best Wealth Management Bank Taiwan 2016
Best Commercial Bank Tanzania 2016
Best Foreign Exchange Bank in Tanzania 2016
Best Mobile Banking Application Tanzania 2016
Best Retail Bank Tanzania 2016
Best Trade Finance Bank Tanzania 2016
Fastest Growing General Insurance Company Tanzania 2016
Best SME Bank Tanzania 2016
Best Equities Broker Tanzania 2016
Best Securities Broker Tanzania 2016
Best Bank for Auto Financing Thailand 2016
Best Bancassurance Distribution Network Thailand 2016
Best Investment Banking Thailand 2016
Best Retail Bank Thailand 2016
Best SME Bank Thailand 2016,
Best Trade Finance Bank Thailand 2016
Best Mobile Trading Platform Thailand 2016
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Best Life Insurance Company Thailand 2016
Best Investor Relations Company Thailand 2016
Best Corporate Bank Trinidad and Tobago 2016
Best Customer Service Bank Trinidad and Tobago 2016
Best Internet Bank Trinidad and Tobago 2016
Best Trade Finance Bank Tunisia 2016
Best Credit Insurance Company Tunisia 2016
Best Life Insurance Company Tunisia
Best Islamic Bank Tunisia 2016
Best Leasing Company Tunisia 2016
Best Forex Advisory Tunisia 2016
Best Corporate Bank Turkey 2016
Best Corporate Governance Bank Turkey 2016
Best Investment Bank Turkey 2016
Best Investor Relations Bank Turkey 2016
Best Private Banking Turkey 2016
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Best SME Bank Turkey 2016
Best Bank for Social Media Turkey 2016
Best Trade Finance Bank Turkey 2016
Best Health Insurance Turkey 2016
Best Life Insurance Company Turkey 2016
Best Institutional Brokerage Firm Turkey 2016
Fastest Growing Islamic Retail Bank Turkey 2016
Best New Takaful Provider Turkey 2016
Best Banking Contact Centre Experience Turkey 2016
Best Internet Bank Turkey 2016
Best Mobile Banking Application Turkey 2016
Best CSR Company Turkey 2016
Best Factoring Company Turkey 2016
Best Forex Broker Turkey 2016
Best Forex Customer Service Broker Turkey 2016
Best Pension Fund Manager Turkey 2016
Best Credit Insurance Company Turkey 2016
Best Asset Management Company Turkey 2016
Best New Asset Management Company Turkey 2016
Best Research Database Turkey 2016
Best Brokerage House for Islamic Bonds Turkey 2016
Best Automated Auto Financing Credit Management System Turkey 2016
Best Corporate Bank UAE 2016
Best Investor Relations Bank UAE 2016
Best Social Media Bank UAE 2016
Best Health Insurance Service Provider UAE 2016
Best Non-Life Insurance Company UAE 2016
Best New Credit Card Programs UAE 2016 (World MasterCard Credit Card
and Red MasterCard Credit Card)
Best Cash Management Bank UAE 2016
Best Corporate Governance Bank UAE 2016
Best Digital Bank UAE 2016
Best Mobile Banking Application UAE 2016
Best Wealth Management Bank UAE 2016
Best Retail Bank UAE 2016
Best Trade Finance Bank UAE 2016
Best Customer Experience UAE 2016
Best Fixed Income Fund Manager UAE 2016
Best Real Estate Investment Company UAE 2016
Fastest Growing Islamic Corporate Bank UAE 2016
Best Islamic Banking Marketing Campaign (Jwayez) UAE 2016
Best Islamic Finance CSR Company UAE 2016
Best Finance Comparison Website UAE 2016
Standard Bank Swaziland
Swedbank
Zurich Insurance Company Ltd
Thalia Sa
Habib Bank
Structured Commodity Corporate Finance (SCCF) Sarl
CTBC Bank
Taipei Fubon Bank
CTBC Bank
Chailease Holding
Fubon Insurance
DBS Bank Taiwan
DBS Bank Taiwan
DBS Bank Taiwan
Cathay United Bank
Nan Shan Life Insurance Co
King’s Town Bank
CRDB Bank Plc
I & M Bank (T) Ltd
Accessbank Tanzania
CRDB Bank Plc
Standard Chartered Bank Kenya Limited
UAP Insurance
Diamond Trust Bank Tanzania Limited
Orbit Securities Co Ltd
Orbit Securities Co Ltd
Thanachart Bank
TMB Bank
The Siam Commercial Bank Public Company Limited (SCB)
Krungthai Bank Pcl
Kasikornbank Pcl
Kasikornbank Pcl
Maybank Kim Eng
Southeast Insurance Plc
Bank of Ayudhya Public Company Limited (Krungsri Bank)
Thai Life Insurance Plc.
Indorama Venture Public Company Limited
First Citizens Bank Limited
Republic Bank Limited
Republic Bank Limited
Societe Tunisienne De Banque
Cotunace
Assurances Comar Et Hayett
Zitouna Bank
Arab Tunisian Lease
BFX Baron Forex Education & Consulting
Abank
Garanti Bank
Aktif Bank
Garanti Bank
Yapı Kredi Bankası A.Ş
Yapı Kredi Bankası A.Ş
Denizbank
Kuveyt Türk
Yapı Kredi Bankası A.Ş
Acibadem Saglık Ve Hayat Sigorta A.S.
MetLife
Burgan Securities
Albaraka Turk
Katilim Emeklilik Ve Hayat A.S.
Odeabank
Odeabank
Odeabank
Halk Yatirim (Halk Invest)
Garanti Factoring A.S.
Destek Menkul Degerler As (Domino Forex)
Destek Menkul Degerler As (Domino Forex)
AK Asset Management
Euler Hermes Turkey
AK Asset Management
Marmara Capital
Merkezi Kayit Kurulusu A.S. (MKK)
Halk Yatirim (Halk Invest)
ALJ Finans
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Dubai Islamic Bank
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Aafiya
Oman Insurance Company
Rakbank
Emirates NBD Bank PJSC
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Mashreq Bank
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Emirates NBD Bank PJSC
Mashreq Bank
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Mashreq Bank
Waha Capital
Emirates REIT
Ajman Bank
Ajman Bank
Amlak Finance PJSC
Souqalmal.Com
Amlak Finance PJSC

Best Sharia Compliant Property Finance Company UAE 2016
Best CSR Bank UAE 2016
Best Islamic Banking CEO – UAE 2016 – Mr. Mohammad Abdullah Tanqia FZC
Best Commercial Bank Uganda 2016
Best Internet Bank Uganda 2016
Best Investment Bank Uganda 2016
Best Microfinance Bank Uganda 2016
Best Mobile Banking Application Uganda 2016.
Best Banking Product (Karibu Account) Uganda 2016
Best Retail Uganda 2016
Best SME Bank Uganda 2016
Best Life Insurance Company Uganda 2016
Best General Insurance Company Uganda 2016
Best Housing Finance Bank Uganda 2016
Most Innovative New Exchange Platform Uganda 2016
Best Forex Education Provider UK 2016
Best Trading Platform UK 2016
Best Corporate Bank Ukraine 2016
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Best Customer Services Bank Ukraine 2016
Best SME Bank Ukraine 2016
Best Health Insurance Company Ukraine 2016
Best Commercial Bank Uruguay 2016
Best Trading Platform Uruguay 2016
Best Investment Management Team Uruguay 2016
Best Capital Markets Company Uruguay 2016
Best Retail Bank Uruguay 2016
Best Internet Bank Uruguay 2016
Best Customer Service Bank Uruguay 2016
Best Online Trading Academy USA 2016
Best Corporate Trust Bank USA 2016
Best Investment Company Uzbekistan 2016
Best Leasing Company Uzbekistan 2016
Best SME Bank Uzbekistan 2016
Best Fund Management Company Vietnam 2015
Best Life Insurance Product for Enterprises in Vietnam 2016
Best Bancassurance Partnership Vietnam 2016
Best Bank for ATM Network and Services Vietnam 2016
Best Bank for CSR Vietnam 2016
Best Customer Service Bank Vietnam 2016
Fastest Growing Retail Bank Vietnam 2016
Best Financial Advisory Bank Vietnam 2016
Best Banking Initiative for Self Employed Customers Vietnam 2016
Best Internet Bank Vietnam 2016
Best Banking Auto Loan Product Vietnam 2016 – SeACar
Best Mobile Banking Application Vietnam 2016
Best Priority Banking Services Vietnam 2016
Best Retail Bank Vietnam 2016
Most Innovative Retail Bank Vietnam 2016
Best Savings Bank Vietnam 2016
Best Credit Cards Vietnam 2016
Best Consumer Finance Company Vietnam 2016
Best Real Estate Developer Vietnam 2016
Best Life Insurance Product in Vietnam 2016
Most Innovative SME Bank Vietnam 2016
Best Brokerage House Vietnam 2016
Best Equity House Vietnam 2016
Best Delivery Finance Product Company Vietnam 2016
Fastest Growing Custodian Bank Western Africa 2016
Fastest Growing Financial Services Company Western Europe 2016
Fastest Growing Alternative Investment Company Western Europe 2016
Best FX & CFD Research Western Europe 2016
Fastest Growing Commercial Bank Zambia 2016
Best Commercial Bank Zambia 2016
Best New Corporate Bank in Zambia
Best CSR Bank Zambia 2016
Best Internet Bank Zambia 2016
Best Investment Bank Zambia 2016
Best Agri-Business Bank Zambia 2016
Best Customer Service Bank Zambia 2016
Best Retail Bank Zambia 2016
Best Non-Life Insurance Company Zambia 2016
Best Bank for International Banking Services Zambia 2016
Best Commercial Bank Zimbabwe 2016
Most Innovative Banking Product- Youth Account Zimbabwe 2016
Best Life Insurance Company Zimbabwe 2016
Best Bank for Investor Relations Zimbabwe 2016
Best Microfinance Bank Zimbabwe 2016
Best New Bank for Card Services Zimbabwe 2016
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Best New Investment Platform Asia 2016
Best Commercial Bank Middle East 2016
Fastest Growing IB Program South East Asia 2016
Best Banking CEO Qatar 2016
Best Trade Finance Bank Qatar 2016 Doha Bank
Best Banking Applications (Website & Mobile) Application Qatar 2016
Best New Takaful Provider Oman 2016
Best Asset Management Company Sri Lanka 2016
Best Investment Banking Company Sri Lanka 2016
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Best Customer Service Bank Azerbaijan 2016
Best Corporate Bank Azerbaijan 2016
Best Banking Product (Currency Cards) Lebanon 2016
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The Best Performing Wastewater Utility
in The UAE Under Private-Public-Partnership (PPP) Structure 2016
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Stanbic Bank
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Standard Chartered Bank
Stanbic Bank
Barclays Bank
Bank of Africa – Uganda Ltd
Jubilee Life Insurance Company of Uganda Ltd
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Learn to Trade
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SeABank
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SeABank
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VietinBank
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Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BIDV)
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First Capital Bank Zambia
Barclays Bank
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Yapi Kredi Bank
LGB Bank
LGB Bank

62 Issue 6Asia

ASIA INTERVIEW
Celebrating
96 years of strong
partnerships
Founded in 1920 by entrepreneurs, China Banking Corporation is celebrating
96 years of strong partnerships. Global Banking & Finance Review spoke with
Ricardo R. Chua, President and CEO of China Banking Corporation about the
key to successful corporate governance, the current business and banking
environment in the Philippines and China Bank’s future strategy.
What are the risks and challenges you see facing
the business environment in the Philippines?
The Philippines will continue its economic growth
momentum amid several downside risks. The
country is expected to remain one of the fastest
growing markets in Asia / SE Asia given this
year’s GDP growth of around 7%.
The expected US Fed policy rate hike in
December and the presence of political
uncertainties (i.e. Donald Trump’s protectionist
stance and Philippine President Rodrigo
Duterte’s pivot towards China and Russia) may
somewhat erode capital values, BPO sector
expansion, and trade flows. Higher oil prices,
while normally negative for the country, can
be offset somewhat by the overseas Filipino
workers (OFW) remittances (currently around
$ 26 billion this year), maintaining its 3-4%
slight upward trajectory as the recent OPEC oil
agreement has pushed up oil prices -- can give
the Arabian countries (where around 30% of
the OFWs are based) a significant boost to its
budget / construction industry.
However, the contraction could be partly offset by
our country’s healthy domestic market boosted
by the current administration’s commitment to
job creation, human capital development, and
infrastructure projects. The upbeat domestic
market will allow banks to expand their balance
sheets and maintain healthy asset quality.
Additionally, the wind down of access to the BSP
deposit facilities may push liquidity back into the
banking system, which will increase the deposit
base of the bigger banks.
How does China Banking Corp help companies
and enterprises raise the necessary capital they
need?
The Bank assists companies especially the
mid-cap clients to explore financing solutions
that would benefit them. The Bank is continually
looking at ways to enable these clients to
lower their borrowing costs and improve their
capital structure to be used for their business
expansions. The Bank has, in the past few years,
made key hires to acquire the expertise, skills,
and knowledge to help and advise clients achieve
the most optimal mix in their capital structure.
Issue 6 | 63

ASIA INTERVIEW
The bank has also developed one of the
most diverse and effective institutional
and retail distribution network that would
eventually help potential borrowers achieve
the lowest and most cost effective solutions
for their funding requirements.
In what ways does your corporate banking
division assist clients in managing their
risk and enhance their revenue?
The corporate banking division offers
various financial services and products to
aid customers’ businesses. Credit facilities
offered may be revolving or non-revolving,
in Peso or foreign currency (primarily
U.S. Dollar) denominated, and secured or
unsecured. The division assists clients
in their funding requirements through
close collaboration with our investment
banking. Aside from lending products, the
corporate banking division also offers cash
management services, deposit services
and investment advisory services to create
operational and cost efficiencies for its
customers. The Bank’s cash management
services address customers’ disbursements,
collections and liquidity needs. It also has
liquidity solutions which aim to promote
transparency of balances and transactional
movements to allow corporate clients to
take full control and optimize their working
capital. These services are executed primarily
through the Bank’s proprietary online banking
platform, China Bank Online which provides
ease of transaction and an additional layer of
security for the clients’ funds.
As a leader in corporate governance why is
it so important and what do you believe are
the key elements to successful corporate
governance?
Good corporate governance is one of the
most important cornerstones in ensuring
the sustainability of our business. Indeed,
by upholding the highest ethical standards
in conducting our business, we have
earned the trust and confidence of our
stakeholders and our business partners.
In banking, trust is everything. By building
on this trust and complementing it with
leading edge technology, efficient systems
and processes, and by running our business
with a highly trained professional team,
we are able to attract the best customers
and business partners, lower our cost of
funds, and ultimately, build a strong brand
franchise with loyal customers.
Profit with honor is indeed an admirable
business philosophy. It has been crucial
in China Bank’s success over the last 96
years. We endeavor to elevate our corporate
governance structures and processes to
global standards, constantly monitoring
developments and benchmarking against
best practices. One significant trigger
was when we first accessed the offshore
markets with our US$125 million floating
rate certificates of deposit (FRCD) issue
in 1996 and 1997. We have always been
transparent and forthright to facilitate
understanding of China Bank’s true financial
condition and the quality of our corporate
governance, but when we had our FRCD
issue, there was so much more disclosure
required, and this prompted us to step up
our corporate governance efforts to gain
the trust and confidence of international
creditors and investors. Shortly after our
FRCD issue, corporate governance became
an important issue in Asia in the aftermath
of the Asian financial crisis in 1997. And as
the business landscape changes with the
increased competition, tighter regulations,
and technological innovations, we remain
resolute in our commitment to proactively
strengthen our governance practices to make
China Bank more resilient and to deliver
greater customer and shareholder value.
China Bank is led by a vigilant and high
functioning board of directors and
management team with unquestionable
integrity, dedication, and competence. Our
leaders fully embrace the Bank’s mission,
vision, and values; they chart China Bank’s
path to success, guided not only by the
Bank’s principles, but also by the principles
of good corporate governance—fairness,
accountability, integrity, and transparency.
Our leaders set the tone of governance and
ensure that mechanisms for disclosure,
protection of the rights of shareholders, the
equitable treatment of shareholders, and
the accountability of the Board of Directors
and Management are in place and diligently
implemented in accordance with the highest
ethical standards and strictest regulatory
compliance. Together, the Board and
Management maintain a collaborative and
productive work environment that drives
high performance and quality orientation,
consistent with our commitment to deliver
strong customer and shareholder value.
What impact are foreign investors having
on the Philippine banking sector?
The impact of the foreign investors on
the Philippine banking industry would be
mixed as domestic firms will be challenged
to defend their niche through mergers &
acquisitions and product differentiation to
compete with the new entrants. On the other
hand, having foreign investors would mean
expansion on the customer base of local
firms that will result to more opportunities
for business expansion and employment.
This will also facilitate the transfer of
technology that will encourage innovation
and improvement in efficiency but may post
risks to exporters over changing comparative
advantage. The entry of foreign banks in the
Philippines would mean tighter competition –
that will encourage the local banks to beef up
capital, hire & retain good professionals and
to continuously launch innovative services.
Also, the liberalization will drive interest
rates down due to increased price-based
competition. To overcome challenges, the
government and the Central Bank of the
Philippines (Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas)
must work together to streamline procedures
and information databases for ease of
business and risk management and generate
more high-quality jobs locally to limit human
capital outflow.
What is the long-term business strategy for
China Banking Corp?
China Bank’s core strategies are: acquire
customers, deepen relationships, and to
be the best bank for its customers. The
Bank will strive to remain a major player
with a sizeable presence in the small to
medium enterprise (SME) and middle
markets, while maintaining its niche in
the Chinese business community. The
Bank also expects to take advantage of
bigger business opportunities following the
public launch of China Bank MasterCard,
integration of Planters Development Bank
(PDB) with the thrift banking arm, China
Bank Savings (CBS), and the setup of the
Bank’s investment house, China Bank
Capital Corp (CBCC).
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ASIA INTERVIEW
GILBERT U. DEE, Vice Chairman of the Board
HANS T. SY, Chairman of the Board
RICARDO R. CHUA , President and Chief Executive Officer
Issue 6 | 65

ASIA INTERVIEW
66 | Issue 6

ASIA INTERVIEW
The Bank will expand its presence in the urban, rural, and unbanked
areas and put up branches in prime locations within the National
Capital Region to utilize the branch licenses for restricted areas
awarded by the BSP as part of its incentives for the PDB acquisition.
It will continue to deepen relationships with its existing clients and
develop new corporate and commercial accounts coming from the
‘new economy’: utilities, telecommunication, infrastructure, business
processing and logistics, with the goal of raising market share for
both Peso and Dollar-denominated lending. On the commercial
side, the Bank will defend its niche in the SME and middle markets
by strengthening its account management complement and
building its credit underwriting and loans processing capacity. The
Bank will leverage on its experience in lending to Filipino-Chinese
entrepreneurs to grow its share of their new businesses, tap the
next generation of business owners, and meet the requirements of
its parent company SM Group’s network of suppliers, contractors
and tenants. Finally, on retail lending, it will strengthen both its
internal client sourcing scheme and branch referral program and
effectively bundle housing & auto loan products and credit cards
with mainstream banking services.
The Bank will build up its investment securities portfolio, diversify
holdings into better-yielding corporate & sovereign issues that
would generate more fees from bond trading and distribution, and
raise corporate funding to supplement the deposit build-up at the
branch level. The addition of CBCC will also broaden the range of
services available to the Bank’s institutional clients and generate
additional fee-based income and compensating business for the
group.
The CBS-PDB tandem would be able to generate better returns by
leveraging on its combined presence in the commercial, middle,
and SME space through the setup of business centers and
provincial sales offices. It will tap business prospects from the SM
Group’s supply chain and convert Contract-to-Sell (CTS) financing
to end-user home financing facilities and continue to offer its
teachers’ loans.
The Bank will strive to achieve a holistic view of clients’ needs
regardless of market segment and create consistent results and
experiences, not only in the branch, but also across all channels—
ATM network, phone & mobile banking, and China Bank Online.
Newly opened branches would carry the new branch design with
existing branches to follow. In the area of business intelligence, a
dedicated research team will analyze customer demographics and
behavior to determine which products best meet clients’ profile
and preferred banking channels, eventually improving customer
satisfaction and retention. Additionally, key banking policies &
procedures will be reviewed and streamlined, together with the
upgrade of several business systems such as online banking
platform for both corporate and retail clients, Treasury, and
remittance, among others.
China Bank will strengthen its human resource complement
by growing the existing manpower base, hiring & deploying
management trainees, and rolling out training programs covering
customer service, sales management, leadership, and project
management & execution.
PRESIDENT AND CEO, CHINA BANKING
CORPORATION
Issue 6 | 67

ASIA INTERVIEW
Ricardo R. Chua, president and CEO
since 2014 and previously executive vice
president and COO since 1995, has been
a driving force behind China Bank for
many years, although the history of his
beginnings here hardly fit the storyline of
an overnight success. He joined the Bank
in 1975 as a 23-year-old young deputy,
one of the many key hires of the institution
that was ripe for transformation. Armed
with a degree in accounting and a Masters
degree in business management from the
Asian Institute of Management (AIM), he
had no prior exposure to banking, but this
did not deter him from doing great things
in the Bank.
“I was assigned to run bank wide
operations which provided me in depth
understanding on how to run the Bank,”
Ric says.
There was no manual for training of young
officers back then, so he designed his
own program. He started at the bottom,
rotating through stints at all kinds of tasks,
including audit, tellering and clerical work.
Then he worked at the bank branches to
give himself a ground-level appreciation for
the operations, culture, and challenges of
the Bank. Two decades and many hats and
learnings later, he became COO.
Leadership philosophy: Employees
make the company
At the core of Ric Chua’s leadership
philosophy is his belief that the Bank is
built on the collective story of the men and
women who have served the institution—in
other words, the Bank’s workforce. He
believes in hiring and nurturing the best
and the brightest; and that this continuing
commitment to professionalism and
excellence has prepared the Bank for a
highly competitive banking industry.
This philosophy that underlies what he calls
the “China Bank DNA” believes that what
sets a great organization apart from others
is the strength of its people, who in turn are
passionate about making a difference in the
lives and businesses of their customers –
hence the corporate mantra “Your Success
is our Business.” This customer-centric
approach was reinforced during China
Bank’s 90th anniversary celebration with
the campaign – “More Than Your Banker.
The Right Partner.” -- conveying the bank’s
legacy of enduring partnerships lasting
many generations, anchored on the trust
bestowed by clients and depositors, but
earned the hard way thru consistent hard
work and integrity.
For Ric, the challenge going forward is to
continue to have a strong management
team – one that is a blend of book-smart
and street-smart people. He emphasizes
the importance of being grounded. His
own experience as a branch manager
during his first years in the Bank has
given him valuable lessons in banking.
“I love to talk about how to take care
of our customers—it’s not the textbook
approach. We don’t want to lose that
DNA and character of the Bank of
understanding the customer,” he says.
In his messages to the management
team and exhortations to the people in
the field particularly the branches, Ric
Chua strongly emphasizes that with the
origins of China Bank as a bank put up by
businessmen for businessmen, we should
all “think like entrepreneurs” and not act
like paper pushers, because it only in this
way that you could anticipate the needs of
your customers and respond to this needs
and requirements.
This exhortation brings to life the bank’s
Mission Statement that Ric Chua crafted
in 1994 together with the Management
team, which says “We shall be a primary
catalyst in the creation of wealth for our
customers, driven by a desire to help
them succeed, through a highly motivated
team of competent and empowered
professionals, guided by an in depth
knowledge of their needs and supported
by leading-edge technology.
China Bank’s visionary
Ric has long been regarded as a “visionary”
in China Bank – pushing for the Bank’s IT
modernization, including the acquisition
of a new core banking system rolled out in
August 2015. Under Ric’s guidance, China
Bank replaced its legacy system with the
robust and more powerful Finacle Core
Banking Solution from Infosys—part of the
overall upgrade and enhancement initiative
to support the Bank’s expanding operations
and drive customer growth.
In 2007, he initiated the strategic alliance
between Manulife Philippines and China
Bank, giving birth to the bancassurance
business MCBL or Manulife China Bank
Life Assurance Corporation. This exclusive
partnership has proven to be mutually
beneficial to both parties, providing China
Bank customers with a wider array of
insurance and investment products and
contributing a significant source of feebased
revenues. The partnership has also
contributed up to a quarter of Manulife
Philippines business.
He also led the Bank’s acquisition
of Manila Bank in 2007, which was
relaunched as a savings bank subsidiary
China Bank Savings as the consumer
banking arm of the China Bank group.
The acquisition of a provincial thrift bank
Unity Bank gave China Bank the platform
for a new consumer segment of salary
loans for teacher. A couple of years ago,
he successfully carried out the acquisition
of Planters Development Bank, which was
merged in 2015 into China Bank Savings,
bolstering its portfolio in the SME sector.
He continued to further grow the institution
by initiating the formation of China Bank
Capital Corporation, the investment
house subsidiary of China Bank, providing
clients with a wide range of services that
include debt and equity capital raising and
underwriting, project finance, mergers and
acquisitions, and more.
Currently, Ric is spearheading the “digital
banking project” coupled with a parallel
initiative to refresh the China Bank brand
and branch design —a progressive attempt
by China Bank to compete in this era of
digital banking and virtual convenience by
providing superior customer experience
across all channels.
“We have seen the role of technology evolve
from merely providing the hardware and
software to efficiently handle a greater volume
of transactions to providing the platforms
and managing the ecosystems that will
enable the delivery of superior customercentric
experience across all channels,”
Ric says. “This approach drives the digital
transformation initiatives we are currently
undergoing under my personal supervision.”
Success on his watch
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ASIA INTERVIEW
Under Ric’s leadership, China Bank’s credit
rating was upgraded by international ratings
agency Fitch Ratings to ‘BB+’ from ‘BB’, with
a Stable outlook. The upgrade was based on
the “expectation that the Bank will maintain
broadly-steady asset quality, adequate
capital buffers, and stable funding and
liquidity profiles as it grows and potentially
gains market share.”
With Ric at the helm, China Bank has
been a recipient of the Bell Award for
Corporate Governance by the Philippine
Stock Exchange—the only bank among the
awardees in the publicly-listed company
category and the only listed company to
have won for five consecutive years. In
2016, he received the award for Asia’s Best
CEO (Investor Relations) – Philippines at the
6th Asian Excellence Awards presented by
Corporate Governance Asia.
When asked for a motto he lives his life
by, he answers: “Be bold and passionate
in seizing opportunities; be disciplined in
pursuing your dreams to the end.” Proof
that he follows this mantra to the letter
is the level of success he has helped
China Bank rise to – a level that sees the
institution as one of the most trusted
banks in the Philippines.
Other accomplishments
Ric is a member of the China Bank
Board since 2008 as the chairman of the
Management Committee, vice chairman of
the Credit Committee, and a member of the
Executive Committee. He likewise serves
in the Boards of China Bank subsidiaries
China Bank Savings, CBC Properties and
Computer Center, Inc., and China Bank
Capital Corporation.
He is a founding director of BancNet,
Inc., the largest ATM consortium in the
Philippines, serving for several terms as
chairman and vice chairman, and was
again elected BancNet president for 2016 –
2017. In the recent past, he was likewise a
director of CBC Venture Capital Corporation,
the Philippine Clearing House Corporation
(PCHC), and other directorships outside of
China Bank.
Ricardo R. Chua
President and CEO
China Banking Corporation
Issue 6 | 69

ASIA TECHNOLOGY
Denial.
Resistance.
Adaptation.
The Three Phases of SSH Key Management
It has been said that there are several stages to grieving: denial,
anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. There is often a
similar reaction when it comes to realizing that the back door to our
enterprises has been open for a long time due to poorly managed
SSH user keys.
SSH user keys are a means of authentication, similar in some ways
to a password. Whether it is access to our Oracle databases, payment
processing systems, trading platforms, network devices, Linux
based IOT devices or Amazon cloud, SSH and SSH user key-based
access is pervasively used. It connects our processes together for
application-to-application data transfers, and the way our administrators
and developers can conveniently access their environments.
What is unique about SSH user keys, and why should we be concerned?
• Anyone with an SSH client in your organization and access to a
server can generate an SSH key pair.
• SSH user keys don’t expire, meaning they continue to provide
access unless they are removed from the locations where
they reside.
• SSH user keys don’t necessarily correlate themselves to an
identity, meaning we can’t easily assess which person or what
process the key pair is associated with.
This equals access to our most critical infrastructure, which is completely
out of control.
The Financial Sector Today: “The Wild, Wild West” of SSH User Keys
For the last two decades, the provisioning, de-provisioning and
recertification process of SSH user key-based access in most financial
institutions could be described as the “wild, wild West.” Whereas
SSH has primarily been seen as encryption protocol and, to a lesser
degree, as a means of access to our most critical infrastructure, it
has often been the unwanted stepchild of the prioritized security
70 | Issue 6

ASIA TECHNOLOGY
initiatives. Who really wants to share with the CISO and CIO that the
organization currently has hundreds of thousands or even millions
of unmanaged access credentials?
The workflow has gone like this: An application owner is tasked to
create a connection to another application to securely move data
between them. The application owner assigns an administrator to
set up the connection. The administrator sets up the connection,
generates and deploys themselves the SSH user keys to automate
the authentication of the connection, and then tests the connection
to confirm that everything is working. If everything connects properly
and the data moves between the applications, the job is considered
done and forgotten.
The problem here is everything that did not happen in this process.
The administrator was able to generate access without oversight
or approval. No inventory of the connections the key-based access
established was kept. No monitoring of the key was enabled. No
lockdown of where that private key could actually be used from, and
no lockdown of what commands that SSH session between the
application could run.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore, Federal Reserve Bank, Indian
Reserve Bank, BaFin, the European Central Bank and PCI auditors
are beginning to flag this out-of-control access within financial
institutions.
Furthermore, data points from the environments of these large
financials are uncovering millions of SSH user key-based connections
to their most critical infrastructure that cannot be tracked back
to owners within the financial institution. In many cases, this access
carries root-level implications, the highest degree of privileged
access. Astonishingly, up to 90 percent of this SSH user key-based
access is obsolete.
Issue 6 | 71

ASIA TECHNOLOGY
However, the implications and flagged audit
items are not stopping there. Auditors are
also finding scenarios of insiders using
SSH key-based access to bypass privileged
access controls, providing themselves
backdoors to applications and infrastructure.
Accounts and users sharing key-based
credential run rampant, and it is commonplace
for users to leverage keys to gain
greater access across the environment than
they should have.
It is an issue that financial institutions can
no longer ignore and must be addressed
within their identity access management
frameworks.
Phase 1: Denial
We are seeing breaches in which the misuse
of SSH has played a significant role in
exfiltration of critical data. In fact, in the
Snowden and Sony breaches, there is significant
evidence that SSH user keys were
extensively used to gain access to critical
servers and data. Poor to non-existent SSH
key management and encrypted access
control played a significant contributing
factor to both of these major headlines.
A critical question is: “How would an enterprise
know if SSH user keys had been used
to gain unauthorized access to servers and
exfiltrate data if we don’t have any inventory
of SSH user keys and are not monitoring
their usage and how they are provisioned,
revoked and recertified?” Well, we wouldn’t
and we don’t.
In addition, many organizations have little
to no visibility into their encrypted SSH and
SFTP traffic, thereby rendering our intrusion
detection systems, data loss prevention systems,
anti-virus and SIEM tools ineffective in
identifying threats in real time where SSH is
potentially being used maliciously.
Phase 2: Resistance
After denial comes resistance. This usually
entails the following:
1. Please don’t scan my environment
to show me the size of the problem,
because then I will have to fix it.
2. But I have so many other more important
initiatives.
3. There are too many stakeholders
involved to solve this.
4. We are moving to the cloud, so this
won’t be a problem.
Let’s go through these statements so we
can move to the phase of adapting our
organizations to acceptance of this massive
problem.
1. Please don’t scan my environment to
show me the size of the problem, because
then I will have to fix it.
A scan of the environment is an eye-opening
and humbling experience. It will provide
insight into risk around segregation of duty
access controls from non-production to
production environment. It will demonstrate
gaps in how we manage third-party access
to our environments, give us insight into
access that has not been recertified in two
or more years and demonstrate where we
have key-based access with weak encryption.
It will highlight how deeply a malicious
actor could penetrate into our environment
with a single stolen private key. The primary
issue is how we gain control of this access
regarding how we provision it, revoke it and
recertify it.
2. But I have so many other more important
initiatives.
What could be more important than securing
the primary back-down in terms of
access to our most critical infrastructure?
How can we continue to ignore hundreds of
thousands to millions of access credential
to our most critical infrastructure?
3. There are too many stakeholders involved
to solve this.
SSH unites our organizations when it comes
to access and data flows. It cuts across
our on-premises assets and is used by
third-party suppliers to gain access to our
systems remotely and transfer data to our
systems. It is used by our developers to
move code throughout the DevOps supply
chain as we create new applications.
It is used to gain access to our cloud and
to transfer data and connect applications
between our midrange servers and our
mainframe.
The SSH-related access challenge organizations
face actually have the chance to bring
many organizational functions closer together.
First and foremost, SSH user key and
encrypted access is an identity and access
management issue. However, cryptographic
services, security operations and infrastructure
all play a significant role in effectively
addressing the issue. It’s not really an issue
of too many stakeholders; it’s more about
identifying who has the ownership to solve
the problem.
4. We are moving to the cloud, so this won’t
be a problem.
Regardless of your plans for migrating services
and applications to the cloud, SSH will
continue to play a key role when it comes to
access and the movement of data.
Issue 6 | 73

ASIA TECHNOLOGY
Many large enterprises engage in what is
known as a “lift and shift” when it comes to
the first step of cloud migration. For SSH
user key-based access, this means that we
have simply migrated the access challenges
we faced on-premises into our cloud.
Additionally, in the automation stack of
the DevOps process, SSH user key-based
access is the developers’ tool of choice to
move code from source code repositories
like Github to test and build automation
tools like Jenkins, all the way through to
how we upload the code to a cloud application.
We must take into consideration that
developers have access through the supply
chain closer than ever to development
environments. This access also needs to be
controlled effectively.
Phase 3: Adaptation
Once we have overcome denial and resistance,
there are effective ways to gain
visibility, control and ongoing governance of
our SSH user key-based access.
First, because in most cases SSH user
key-based access has not been part of the
overall provisioning processes of organizations’
identity management frameworks, we
have to solve the visibility challenge. Visibility
consists of developing a mapping of
private and public keys to their corresponding
interactive or application-to-application
connection. This can be achieved through
scripted approaches, some of the privileged
access management solutions and those
dedicated to managing SSH user keys.
At the same time, there are other, easily
available tools that can help us understand
how frequently keys are authenticating
and from where. This is known as verbose
logging and can be activated in the SSH
daemon; it is essential because it provides
us the needed intelligence about what keybased
access in our environment is valid
and what access may no longer be needed.
It also can help us identify if private keys are
authenticating from IPs that are not recognized
by our network.
Controlling the bleed of unauthorized SSH
user key-based provisioning is probably the
primary challenge organizations need to address.
Through a process called “lockdown,”
where authorized keys are relocated from
users’ home directories to a central rootowned
location, only users with root-level
access are able to generate new SSH user
keys going forward. But be careful here; if
you lock down access without having a provisioning
process in place, you may frustrate
many of your administrators, developers
and application owners. Communication of
the process and oversight is essential to the
success of this process.
The end game is automation. On average,
if a skilled user sets up an SSH user keybased
trust and validates that the connection
is working, it may take five minutes.
An unskilled SSH user, on the other hand,
may take 30 minutes or more. If we do the
math, we are generating thousands, tens of
thousands or hundreds of thousands of SSH
user keys a year, and the costs really begin
to add up. Automation can be achieved
through scripting, solutions dedicated to
SSH user key management and even orchestration
tools.
Denial and resistance are common reactions
when we feel threatened or surprised
by something we think we should have
been aware of. We don’t want to believe that
what is being told to us is true. SSH user
key management is an issue that provokes
this reaction among security professionals.
The good news is that there is an adaptive
process to help us gain visibility, continuous
monitoring and governance of SSH user
key-based trusts. This is a path to a more
secure tomorrow.
Matthew McKenna
Chief Strategy Officer
SSH Communications Security
Matthew brings over 15 years of
high technology sales, marketing,
and management experience to
SSH Communications Security and
drives strategy, key account sales,
and evangelism. Prior to joining
the company, Matthew served as a
member of the executive management
team of ADP Dealer Services Nordic
and Automaster Oy, where he was
responsible for international channel
operations and manufacturer relations.
In addition, he was responsible for key
accounts including Mercedes-Benz,
General Motors, and Scania CV. Before
this, Matthew played professional
soccer in Germany and Finland.
Issue 6 | 75

ASIA BUSINESS
Evgeny Latypov, Excutive Director of Business Bank Group explained that
the core to success in any business starts from internal policies, mainly from a
company’s corporate responsibility, service and design policies and technological
advancement.
Evgeny Latypov
Executive Director
Business Bank Group
76 | Issue 6

ASIA BUSINESS
Global Business
with Business Bank Group
In a globalizing world shaped be increased
interactions, worldwide markets for products
and services, and an ever-growing role for
information technology, many product-driven
companies require assistance from advisory
firms to reach their full potential. Despite this
great need, and hence opportunity, depressingly
most consulting advisory firms fail to survive in
today’s competitive environment. The reason is
simple: they look with a tunnel vision towards
only the financial growth of their clients. Such
companies fail to recognize the importance
of designing services that result in a mutually-beneficial,
dependent relationship for all participants.
Achieving such a result is not difficult
when key goals are kept in mind.
Service Design: ALL-WIN-APPROACH
First, implemented strategies must be inclusive,
providing benefits for the most participants
possible. Actions will have direct impact
on the client, investor, and service provider.
Impact will also carry over to the client’s
customers and even the communities in which
client operates. Business Bank Group (BBG)
provides an example of a successful approach
through BBG Credit. A unique cross-border
loan, BBG Credit enables the purchase of used
vehicles from Japan and the USA. Started as
a financial consulting service for Japanese
used cars exporters, it was aimed at increasing
sales and securing market position in Georgia
and Armenia. Through its design, it quickly
became apparent that sales were positively addressed
and clients were increased. Because
of the growing market demand for the service,
all parties involved have benefited from a rising
volume that eventually attracted more investors,
assuring growth for BBG and Japanese
exporters. The moral here is that benefits did
not flow to only one participant. Therefore, all
felt invested. Creating such a multi-faceted
benefit chain is clearly advantageous.
Technological Advancement
Technological advancements are universally
positive, helping businesses and organizations
save time and production costs. This requires,
however, proper attention and cannot be ignored.
Building on these provides a competitive advantage.
Speeding up and managing communication
delivery, staying in tact, and taking advantage
of fintech tools are key components in gaining
competitive advantage in Financial Consulting.
Consulting services cannot fall behind.
Team Management
A company is only as good as its staff, and a
staff dedicated to the company will succeed. For
consulting companies, an employee who believes
in the company can inspire more confidence in
clients. Employee satisfaction is key as it inspires
loyalty, resulting in a willingness to perform better
and go out of one’s way for the team. Satisfied
employees are extremely loyal to their organization
and stay engaged even in difficult times. Best
efforts are not a result of pressure or fear, they
come from a connection to the team. Employee
satisfaction, combined with professional training,
is central to the goal of providing clients of any
industry that with the assurance that their needs
will be met. Therefore, looking internally first and
taking steps specific to your organization is an
important aspect of consulting.
The results speak for themselves as today BBG is
a trusted consultant covering all continents and
our portfolio includes companies and organizations
of any scale (examples include Be Forward,
Japan,– 415 million USD in sales; Aros Marine,
Lithuania – 350 employees globally; World Fitness
and Bodybuilding Federation – 104 member
countries, the Embassy of Afghanistan in Japan,
Nine Six Films – a Japanese startup company
offering unique way of video filming).
Issue 6 | 77

ASIA TECHNOLOGY
LOCATION INTELLIGENCE
Anil Mathews, Founder & CEO of Near discusses location intelligence
What is location intelligence and what
benefits does it offer the finance sector?
Anil Mathews: Essentially, location
intelligence is the missing ingredient of
context. It blends geographical perspective,
the ‘where’, with the other key contextual
data points — the ‘what, who, when, and
why’ — to create a single, complete picture of
individual or enterprise activity.
The result is real-time, actionable insight that
not only provides a better understanding of the
factors involved in a particular action, such as a
consumer deciding to buy a car, but also when
and where that consumer might make future
purchases — and how they can be influenced.
For the financial sector, such information is
invaluable in every area from retail to real
estate. Using location intelligence businesses
can identify the links between geographical
factors — like spatial attributes, the weather,
urbanization, and environmental constraints —
and activity at an individual, and organizational
level. With a bird’s eye view of economic
context, businesses can ensure their strategy
is one step ahead of emerging trends, market
shifts, and competitors.
What examples are you seeing of financial
services using location intelligence to make
more informed business decisions?
Anil Mathews: Location intelligence has so
many applications as a decision-making tool
that the industry is only just beginning to
discover. Right now, its finance-specific uses
fall into two categories: single and periodical.
In the single-use camp we are seeing location
intelligence informing new investments within
areas such as mining, agriculture, retail, and
commerce. When it comes to periodic use,
it tends to be called upon for larger scale
investments in areas like transportation
services, public utilities or health, inventory
management, and logistics.
Both areas, however, utilize the same core
insight, namely: general spatial viability,
consumer dynamics in relation to prosperity of
people in particular regions — and the products
or services they regularly buy — and other
geographic considerations encompassing
local culture, crime rates, or local attractions.
This information can form an accurate basis
for decisions great and small. Whether it’s
everyday tasks like establishing credit risk, small
business potential for loans and mortgage
suitability, or deciding whether to invest in public
companies, which new ventures to support
and how to manage private equity, location
intelligence is indispensible.
78 | Issue 6

ASIA TECHNOLOGY
How can location intelligence help combat
financial fraud and crime?
Anil Mathews: Fighting financial fraud and
crime in the real world is an age-old battle
and now the rise of digital has extended the
frontline to the virtual space. To stay on top
of these issues tools that tackle both are
essential and this makes location intelligence
a key line of defense.
It can be used to set transaction limits that keep
consumer and organizational spend safe. If a
purchase is made from a location that does
not match previous purchase and investment
patterns — or a pre-defined area that can range
from a country, state or even household —
the transaction will be marked as potentially
fraudulent and can be stopped.
Similarly, fraud in areas such as income,
property, and sales tax can be identified using
location insight gained from credit card usage.
Where consumers live, the places they visit,
and how often they travel can all help to build a
picture of standard behavior. Any unexplained
irregularities that indicate additional income can
be investigated to uncover possible fraud.
How can location intelligence help financial
services reach Millennials?
Anil Mathews: Millennials live a high proportion
of their lives via smart, web-enabled devices
that go with them everywhere and produce
endless streams of data about what they
do, where they do it, and how they prefer
to communicate. And for financial services
providers hoping to engage millennial attention,
extracting the right insights from this rising tide
of location-specific data is vital.
According to the results of a global study
conducted by Telstra in collaboration with Near,
58% 1 of millennials prefer personalized financial
advice and 49% feel it should be delivered via a
mobile app. With accurate location intelligence,
financial service providers can build individual
consumer profiles that enable them to quickly
and accurately adapt their offering, and
communications, and keep up the fast pace of
millennial expectation.
Issue 6 | 79

ASIA TECHNOLOGY
80 | Issue 6

ASIA TECHNOLOGY
What is the future of location intelligence in
the finance sector?
Anil Mathews: Location intelligence is
becoming an intrinsic element of increasing
efficiency and effectiveness within the finance
sector, and in the future it is set to be more so.
At a high level, it will soon have a greater
influence over multi-sector ventures, tracking
and optimizing ROI on investments, and
economic planning activities — such as
economic zones and free trade corridors
— as countries try to reinvent political and
administrative borders. On a smaller scale,
location intelligence is due to continue on its
current course in areas like risk assessment
and expand into new frontiers, like retail and
facilities analytics.
Within the next few years, I believe it will
be instrumental in making e-commerce
frictionless, as well as streamlining urban
planning, logistics, and overall optimization
of investments in private and public
infrastructure. It sounds bold, but the wheels
are already in motion.
What advice would you give financial
services looking to better utilize their
customer data?
Anil Mathews: Unify data and make it
actionable. At the moment, the sector is
struggling with the ‘water, water everywhere’
scenario in that there is plenty of information
available about consumers — financial
status data in one place, transactions and
consumption data in another — but it is stored
in silos and therefore of little use.
There is an urgent need for financial services
providers to embrace tools that amalgamate
their fragmented pools of information and
turn them into cohesive, actionable insight.
Only by understanding the full context of each
consumer or enterprise decision will they be
able to enhance service quality and outshine
the competition.
Anil Mathews
Founder & CEO
Near
Source:
1
https://www.telstraglobal.com/millennials/assets/gatedcontent-millennials-mobiles-money.pdf
Issue 6 | 81

ASIA BANKING
82 | Issue 6

Three
ASIA BANKING
Things
Banks
Can
Learn
From
Pokemon
GO
Issue
6 | 83

ASIA BANKING
The wildly popular Pokemon Go app has broken all
records, with more than 10 million downloads in its first
week and 45 million daily users in July. At its peak, the
app surpassed Twitter in terms of daily active users, and
had a higher average user time than Facebook, Snapchat,
Instagram and WhatsApp.
Given the near universal success of Pokemon Go and the
way in which mobile users embraced it, is there anything
banks can learn from its sudden success that help them
appeal to customers and enrich their experience? The
answer is yes, there is much to learn from Pokemon Go.
Here are three core takeaways.
1. Syncing Works Perfectly:
According to its users, who dub this the best available
feature of Pokemon Go, the syncing works perfectly. If
we catch a Pokemon on one of our devices, it immediately
shows up on other devices as well. Not only that,
any changes made to a Pokemon account are reflected
instantly in real time. In fact, this feature negated the impact
of the app’s greatest weakness – constant crashing,
freezing and failing to load maps.
This is exactly the kind of experience that customers are
looking for in their bank. Customers want the ability to
make transactions across channels and be able to view
them across devices; enabling them to make critical decisions
promptly. Similarly, a consistent brand experience
across all channels – be it mobile, online or in the branch
– is critical to customer experience. Seamless integration
must be a bank’s top priority across all of its channels,
with visually rich and interactive customer experiences.
2. Unique Experience:
What do the iPhone, Facebook and Pokemon Go all have
in common, apart from the fact that they are hugely successful
products/services? In essence, each of them has
one single differentiator that makes it a catalyst for success
– that customers each use the same product, but
have a different experience. Think about like this – when
it comes to Pokemon Go, the game is the same across
the globe; however, the experience is customised for each
user based on either their location or whether they choose
to walk or remain at home.
84 | Issue 6

ASIA BANKING
Issue 6 | 85

ASIA BANKING
For banks, the lesson is the importance of delivering a
bespoke customer journey which provides the personal
touch for each customer. Banks must understand that
each customer is unique, and today’s consumers have
much higher expectations of the companies that they
interact with. Whether profiling customers to cross-sell
products, rewarding them for loyalty, or transforming their
overall banking experiences – it must make the customer
experience memorably unique.
3. Customers as walking billboards:
Pokemon Go closely combines the virtual world with the
real world. In doing so, the app has uncovered the Holy
Grail of advertising – turning its users into walking billboards.
All of those people playing the game on the road,
at monuments, at sports events, in parks, or when out
with their friends, have turned themselves into excellent
brand ambassadors. This kind of behavior is even better
than much-vaunted “word of the mouth” publicity; seeing
peers, colleagues and friends playing the game, encourages
others to join in. The app has also opened up new
revenue opportunities, including ‘licensed locations’ where
‘chauffeurs’ take players around for a nominal fee.
Banks must find a way to incorporate this behavior into
their operations by offering innovative, useful solutions
to customers that turn them into brand fans. Imagine
how excited a customer will be to see their spending
pattern in 3D? Or, how excited a sales team be if their
brochure can be converted into an engaging digital experience
for conversation?
86 | Issue 6

ASIA BANKING
Issue 6 | 87

ASIA BANKING
88 | Issue 6

ASIA BANKING
Augmented reality (AR) can enrich and personalise
user experience; further, through the
intertwining of virtual and real worlds, customers
can really ‘live’ an experience. AR also
complements banks’ Internet of Things (IoT)
strategies, which links virtual and real life even
more closely. If effectively used, this can make
for ’digital brick and mortar branches’.
While technology such as AR is currently at
nascent stage in banking, the rate of growth
and adoption of AR in other fields, and by
consumers, means the financial industry will
be forced to adapt to it in time. To learn the
lessons of Pokemon Go, banks must imagine
each transaction a customer performs as a
‘digital advert’, which simultaneously provides
alternative revenue streams – in doing do,
the potential for embracing immersive, digital
experiences cannot be ignored.
Balasubramanian Vijayakumar
Senior Manager – Corporate Banking
VirtusaPolaris
Issue 6 | 89

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ASIA INVESTMENT
Sydney Stock Exchange Deputy Chairman and Non-Executive Director, Mr. George Wang, Sydney
Stock Exchange CEO, Mr. Tony Sacre and APX Settlement CEO Mr. David Lawrence with their
Most Innovative Stock Exchange Award Australia 2016
Sydney Stock Exchange wins
Most Innovative Exchange
The Sydney Stock Exchange (SSX) has been awarded Global
Banking and Finance’s Most Innovative Stock Exchange
Company Australia Award for 2016. Sydney Stock Exchange
Deputy Chairman and Non-Executive Director, Mr. George Wang,
said “This award is the result of a lot of hard work. For a longtime
the exchange has been developing a real connectivity
between Australia and Asia, especially with China and India,
the two biggest markets within the region. Relationships take
time, and the rewards of our efforts are starting to pay off.”
Sydney Stock Exchange Chairman, Mr. Eric Barr, is extremely
pleased of the work the Sydney Stock Exchange is doing. Mr.
Barr then started discussing the globalization and technology
developments the market is confronting, saying “The rapid
growth in technological developments and constantly
increasing internet speeds has caused the world to become
a lot smaller place. Our Stock Exchange is both technology
focused and globally aware. In this world, you need to be.
From a technology perspective, we are being incredibly
innovative with our work on Blockchain, creating a solution
we believe can disrupt the existing processing and settlement
system. As we are seeing around the world, old business
models are being threatened. Companies seeking capital are
being more directly connected to investors. You have to think
about what this means for brokers, advisers, exchanges, etc.
As an exchange, we are being innovative and adaptive to
change. We are embracing the new environment as we believe
we will prosper within it”.
Sydney Stock Exchange CEO, Mr. Tony Sacre, said “It’s
pleasing to be recognized by this prestigious global award,
vindicating all the work we have been doing and our unique
position and market offering in the Asian region. We
are expanding Australian capital markets by providing a
necessary link to Asian capital markets, in particularly China
and India, the two biggest emerging markets in the world”.
Issue 6 | 91

ASIA INVESTMENT
Sydney Stock Exchange Board members (from L to R): Front row - Non Executive Director Mr. Greg Bundy, Deputy
Chairman and Non-Excutive Director, Mr. George Wang, Chairman and Non Executive Director Mr. James Eric Barr,
Second row - APX Settlement CEO Mr. David Lawrence, Director of Market Development (Australia & India) Ms. Loretta
Joseph, General Manager – Market Supervision Mrs. Anita Zhao, Sydney Stock Exchange CEO, Mr. Tony Sacre
Mr. Sacre said that one of the key drivers of business is to
connect Australia to Asia. Mr. Sacre said that ‘The underlying
philosophy of our exchange is growing that interconnectivity
between Australia and Asia. Part of that focus is working
closely with industry to ensure that we can offer a solution
that matches the requirements of those companies looking
to list. By working closely with key industry participants, we
expect to develop the right balance of accountability when it
comes to our key markets, principally technology, resources,
agribusiness, healthcare, and property”.
Mr. Sacre added that “We believe that we have won
this award due to the innovation we are showing on the
technology side of our business and for the innovation
shown in our customer value proposition”. He continued
stating “At the Sydney Stock Exchange, the team recognize
the need to be nimble and innovative. Our newly installed
start of the art trading system and our refreshed listing
rules really drive home that message, making our exchange
a strong and attractive market for growth companies
looking to list.”
Additionally, Mr. Sacre pointed out that earlier in the
year the Sydney Stock Exchange was the first Australian
Exchange to join the United Nations Sustainable Stock
Exchange Initiative. Mr. Sacre said “At SSX we are
committed to operating an ethical, transparent and
sustainable marketplace. In Australia and throughout
Asia sustainable investing strategies and practices are
becoming increasingly important. SSX is pleased to join the
SSE initiative and we look forward to working in cooperation
with the Sustainable Stock Exchange experts to improve
sustainability practices within our listed companies and
making an impact on the investment community”.
Mr. Wang and Mr. Sacre were both recently in China,
meeting with senior members within the Finance Industry,
Government and Corporate Sectors in Beijing, Shanghai and
Shenzhen. Mr. Sacre said “The interest in Australia from
China is substantial. Additionally, the interest in China from
Australia remains very strong. The job of the exchange is to
bring these international opportunities together”.
92 | Issue 6

ASIA INVESTMENT
Sydney Stock Exchange Deputy Chairman and Non-Excutive Director, Mr. George Wang and Sydney Stock Exchange CEO, Mr. Tony Sacre
Issue 6 | 93

ASIA INVESTMENT
Sydney Stock Exchange Deputy Chairman and Non-Excutive Director, Mr. George Wang and Sydney Stock Exchange General Manager –
Listings, Mr. Joseph Law with the United Nations Sustainable Stock Exchange Initiative
Mr. Sacre noted that “My meetings in China echoed that
we, as an exchange, are on the right path. Facilitating the
process of those with capital meeting up with those with
the right ideas and opportunities, which leads to growth are
what we are about. Helping growth businesses deliver on
their expectations. Our role, as I see it, is to bring companies
and markets together. Speaking specifically about China,
capital markets in China are comparatively young, probably
just over 30 years old. Many of the senior managers and
owners of Chinese companies are incredibly sophisticated
and brilliant business managers and leaders, but they are
unfamiliar with the rules and regulations which exist in the
West. Many want a Western Market listing due to the brand
value associated with an international listing. Australian
Capital Markets are a lot more mature, with a history
extended over 100 years. Compliance rules and international
listing requirements are, therefore, very different and a lot
more stringent in Australia when compared to Chinese
requirements. Australian listing rules and requirements,
issues like continuous disclosure, governance issues
pertaining to board discussions with local directors,
etc can seem quite foreign to many large, successful
Chinese companies. They need to know how to operate in
Australia. To list in a foreign market is attractive to them,
but simultaneously concerning from an administrative
perspective. Our team at the SSX is a multi-cultural team
with a significant degree of experience in both Australian
and Asian Capital markets. Our diverse, multi-cultural team
can use their unique blend of international and domestic
capital market skills to educate Chinese companies
on Australian listing requirements, thus allowing us to
successfully bridge Australian and Asian Capital Markets.”
Sydney Stock Exchange Board members (from L to R): Chairman and Non Executive Director Mr. James Eric Barr,
Non Executive Director Mr. Greg Bundy, Sydney Stock Exchange CEO, Mr. Tony Sacre,
APX Settlement CEO Mr. David Lawrence, Deputy Chairman and Non-Excutive Director, Mr. George Wang,
General Manager – Market Supervision Mrs. Anita Zhao, Director of Market Development (Australia & India) Ms. Loretta Joseph,
94 | Issue 6

ASIA INVESTMENT
From a technological development perspective, Sydney Stock
Exchange has been working closely on what they anticipate
will be an industry leading Blockchain based settlement
solution. Mr. Sacre commented said “Sydney Stock Exchange
and our related entity, APX Settlements, are working on a
Blockchain Based Settlement Solution. The intention of this
work is to create an instantaneous settlement and transfer
upon trade platform to be used by both the Sydney Stock
Exchange and other exchanges. We have successfully prototyped
a blockchain based smart register for the real-time
issuance and allocation of securities. The value of this work
is that it will reduce the risks,time and costs associated
with settlement, savings which can be poured back into the
liquidity of the market”.
APX Settlements CEO, Mr. David Lawrence, said “SSX’s
commitment to innovative development in distributed ledger
technology for equity market settlement and registration and
the rethinking of old industry practices and meeting customer
needs in a more efficient manner is an excellent example of
the innovative and ‘different thinking’ being adopted”.
Mr. Wang commented that “The work that Sydney
Stock Exchange is doing is about creating opportunity
for companies to really work together within the Asian
markets, connecting Australia with Asia. Being able to help
companies commercialize their ideas is a real driver for
Tony and the team at the Sydney Stock Exchange. I believe
their work will start reaping real dividends for companies
within the region. Connecting great Australian ideas, and
promoting the value and brand of Australian companies to
Asia, where they are highly sort after, is a win for Australian
companies and Asian investors. It keeps jobs and profits
in the region, which is good for the growth and overall
economic development of the region.”
Sydney Stock Exchange Deputy Chairman and Non-Excutive Director, Mr. George Wang, Sydney Stock Exchange CEO, Mr. Tony Sacre, APX
Settlement CEO Mr. David Lawrence attending Sino-Australia Investment, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Roundtable Conference in SSX Trading
hall
Issue 6 | 95

MIDDLE EAST FINANCE
96 Issue 6Africa
44 | Issue 5

MIDDLE AFRICA EAST INTERVIEW FINANCE
Banking in
The Gambia
Mr. Bolaji Ayodele CEO and Managing Director of Guaranty Trust Bank (Gambia)
Ltd spoke with Global Banking & Finance Review about the banking industry in The
Gambia and the role of Guaranty Trust Bank (G) Ltd.
How do you view the banking landscape in The
Gambia? What impact are regulations having?
The Government of The Gambia has “Vision
2020” as a development blueprint. The longterm
strategy document which seeks to
transform the country into a middle-income
country shows government commitment to a
private sector led development agenda. This is
comforting to businesses.
The Gambia Banking Industry is over 100 years
and has 11 commercial banks, one Islamic
bank, and all regulated by the Central Bank of
The Gambia.
According to the latest monetary policy report
by the Central Bank of The Gambia, due to
sound policies put in place by the Central
Bank, the financial indicators of the banking
sector remain safe and sound. The industry
risk-weighted capital adequacy ratio averaged
36.5 percent in March 2016, higher than the
required minimum of 10.0 percent. Total
assets increased to D29.4 billion in the year
to end-March, or 4.8 percent from a year ago
attributable primarily to 13.0 percent increase
in investments, with the industry recording a
total net profit of D604MM in 2015.
Issue Issue 5 | 45 6 | 97

AFRICA
Mr. Bolaji Ayodele
CEO and Managing Director
Guaranty Trust Bank (Gambia) Ltd
Mr. Bolaji Ayodele joined Guaranty Trust Bank Plc in 1994, after a brief stint with
Chartered Bank Ltd Nigeria where he served in the Foreign Operations Department
in 1993. Prior to his deployment to The Gambia in 2005 as General Manager,
Mr.Ayodele was the Zonal Co-ordinator for Operations, Northern Nigeria, where all
the GTBank branches in the Northern part of Nigeria were under his purview.
Mr. Bolaji Ayodele was appointed Managing Director and CEO of Guaranty Trust
Bank (Gambia) Ltd in July 2014. Prior to his appointment, he has served as Deputy
under two erstwhile Managing Directors.
Mr. Ayodele holds a BSc in Biochemistry from the University of Lagos, Nigeria
(1991), a Post Graduate Diploma (PGD) in Business Administration from Enugu State
University of Science & Technology (1999) and an MBA in Business Administration
from Enugu State University of Science & Technology (2002). He has also attended
several management courses at some of the world’s leading business schools.
98 | Issue 6

AFRICA INTERVIEW
What are some of the major opportunities
and challenges facing the banking sector
in The Gambia?
The banking sector in The Gambia like
other markets in Africa has its fair share
of both opportunities and challenges.
However, it is my opinion that the
opportunities outweigh the challenges.
The sustained growth of the sector
over the years and the fact that most
commercial banks have been recording
profit is a testimony to this. The Central
Bank of The Gambia has been efficient
in performing its regulatory role which is
really encouraging.
Another opportunity for banking in
The Gambia is the high number of the
unbanked population. Recently, the
Governor of The CBG announced that the
unbanked population is about 80%. This
means there is great potential for growth.
The country also enjoys relative peace and
stability which is good for business and
continues to attract investors.
Significant investments have been
made in the information technology
infrastructure in the country which has
enabled banks team up with GSM service
providers to provide services such as
mobile banking. The investment in
technology has encouraged competition
among banks for the provision of IT based
services. I believe the customers are the
clear winners in this. The Gambia has an
enthusiastic and trainable workforce. It
is also important to note that the country
has a youthful population which could
enhance growth and is also a potential for
continued innovation.
However, despite the opportunities, there
are significant challenges for banks in The
Gambia. The sector is underdeveloped and
relatively small. The income levels are low
which affects savings. The lack of trust
and confidence in conventional banking
by some communities in society continue
to pose a serious challenge to banks.
However, with mounting awareness created
by banks, we have noticed some positive
changes in that regard.
Treasury bill rates have registered a
significant increase over the years. This
has resulted in a corresponding rise in
interest rates which reduces customers’
borrowing appetite and also poses loan
recovery challenges. The volatility of
the foreign exchange market is quite
challenging too.
Last year you launched mobile banking
services, a first of its kind in The Gambia.
Can you tell us more about this?
The GTBank mobile banking is a free
banking platform that allows customers to
do transactions directly from their mobile
phone, e.g., buy credit, change pin, check
balance, BBan Enquiry, Funds Transfer
(Own Account and Third Party) and receive
mini statements. No credit, no internet
required. It offers them convenience and
real-time transactions and helps reduce
transaction costs.
The goal of mobile banking is to expand that
freedom to users even more, by making sure
the user is not even required to be near a
computer or to step into a branch.
It does not require any application/
software to be downloaded to the
handset. It thus enables complex
transactions as well which may not be
possible through SMS. It is secure and
much faster than traditional SMS-based
transactions. The other good thing
about it is that it is a session based
communication, so it does not store
any data on the phone and transactions
terminate as the session ends.
Issue 6 | 99

AFRICA INTERVIEW
Can you tell us more about the electronic
solutions Guaranty Trust Bank has to offer?
Our focus since inception has always
been to provide top quality service for
our clientele. Our robust IT platform has
enabled us to introduce to the market a
bouquet of IT products and services aimed
at making banking much more easy for
our customers.
We have the only electronic branch in
The Gambia. The self-service branch
houses Visa/MasterCard enabled ATMs
and is open 24/7. It has computers which
grant our customer access to our internet
banking platform.
In The Gambia, one has to buy electricity
units before it is supplied. In order to
make the purchase of electricity easier
for our customers, we enabled our ATMs
for Cash Power Vending. What that mean
is, our customers can walk to any of our
ATMs and buy electricity units with their
ATM cards. We also have airtime vending
service. This allows our customers to
purchase Mobile Phone Credit for any
Gambian GSM Network with the GTBank
Verve Card.
Our Internet Banking Platform allows
customers to perform online banking
transactions with the use of a Token
device to ensure a faster, safer and more
convenient experience. The GTBank
portable Internet Banking Security device
allows customers to monitor their accounts,
conduct third party transfers, change their
password, stop cheques, confirm cheques,
and request for standing order.
We have Point of Sale (POS) Terminals
in major restaurants, supermarkets, and
hotels. Our POS Terminals allow anyone
who holds verve domestic cards, VISA and
MasterCard to do their shopping without
necessarily carrying physical cash.
The GTBank POS Terminals have other
benefits which include; checking account
balance, statement printing and funds
transfer between GTBank accounts. These
are some of our technology solutions.
Customer relations are very important in
banking, how do you ensure customers
are receiving the best customer
experience available?
GTBank is a customer service oriented
bank, and our focus has always been to
offer top quality service. In order for our
customers to have the best experience,
our corporate bank, commercial bank,
public sector and retail groups offer
personalized services to various facets
of the economy. With each of these
Groups, we operate on a participatory and
professional front. On the one hand, we
strive to actively acquire the knowledge
needed to service our customers and
on the other hand we impart informed
knowledge on how our customers can
improve their businesses. This way, we
provide total banking solutions that meet
every customer’s needs.
Each of our customers is assigned to one
of our highly professional relationship
managers and account officers. The RMs
and AOs maintain a close professional
relationship with customers they manage.
This increases customer loyalty to the bank.
Our open door policy also requires that
customers can walk into our offices at
anytime and that there is always someone
to attend to their needs and requests.
We also ensure a fast and reliable
turnaround time in our service delivery.
We are popular for our prompt response
to customers’ needs and requests. We
100 | Issue 6

AFRICA INTERVIEW
ensure that our branches and banking
halls are well kept, and our staff is always
available and willing to smile at customers
which is truly comforting.
We are aware of the growing trend in
electronic relationship management,
with email being one of the fastest ways
to respond to customers. However, in
GTBank we believe that picking up the
phone and talking directly to the customer
increases customer trust and confidence
in the bank and brings the customer closer
to the bank.
We also conduct regular products and
services survey. The surveys allow our
customers to give us feedback regarding
our services. This helps us understand
what they need and what improvement is
expected on existing products/services.
How is Guaranty Trust Bank (G) Ltd
supporting the social economic
development in The Gambia?
We have influenced so many changes
in the banking industry with our
establishment in The Gambia in
2002. Customers now enjoy improved
customer services in the provision of
all conventional banking products and
service. We have given financial support
to all sectors of the economy in the form
of short, medium to long-term financing.
Our bank is also in partnership with
The Gambia Revenue Authority in the
collection of taxes for the Government.
Our involvement in all development
sectors of the economy has been
substantial. We pioneered a successful
Medium Term Loan Syndication Facility
for a local telecom company. In our role
as the Mandate Lead Arranger, we put
together a consortium of 4 banks.
In the tourism sector; being the only
VISA Principal member in The Gambia
and therefore the only merchant acquirer
that can issue Point of Sale Terminals to
Hotels, Restaurants, Supermarkets e.tc,
we have also deployed VISA/MasterCard
enabled ATMs for Tourist to have access
to their Funds 24/7.
In our continued support of tourism
development in The Gambia, GTBank, and
International Finance Corporation (IFC-
Commercial arm of the World Bank.), Co-
Financed the infrastructural Development
of a Leading 5 Star Hotel in the Country.
In Employment, we have a policy of
employing young graduates. We also
train and encourage our staff to study
and develop their careers in various
specialized areas of banking and finance.
What are your future plans for
development?
In the years ahead, we hope to consolidate
the gains made over the years and to
continue to be the Bank of choice for both
Gambians and non-Gambians especially
investors. We recently validated our 5-year
strategic plan which will run from January
2017 to December 2021.
Among many other things, the plan places
much emphasis on the development of
tailor-made services to address the needs
of our teeming customers. We want to
maintain our lead role as the innovative
bank in our industry. IT-driven products/
services would continue to be at the
centre of all future plans.
Issue 6 | 101

AFRICA INSURANCE
Understanding
the Value
of Cyber
Insurance
102 | Issue 6

AFRICA INSURANCE
“Cyber insurance” continues is being adopted by an
increasing number of businesses across a range of
industries. The fact that specific insurance is available
shows that the business appreciation of the risks /
costs associated with a cyber-incident are now widely
recognised. According to PwC, the global cyber insurance
market is expected to grow to $5bn in annual
premiums by 2018.
Challenges for insurers
The basics of insurance are quite simple: aggregate the
statistical likelihood of incidents over a population, multiply
it by the cost per incident to determine the payout,
add in a profit margin and spread the “cost” over the
population. For the members of that population, that
means that if lightning strikes you in particular, you’ve
covered a significant portion of the financial cost; and if
it doesn’t, the cost is acceptable to alleviate the larger
risk.
As we all know, the costs around successful cyber-attacks
for businesses can be considerable, especially
where major web properties / applications, personal
customer / employee or key business information is
involved. And, unfortunately, these tend to be exactly
what attackers are after.
The challenge for insurance companies in the security
space is the lack of historical data to drive predictive
models for future incidents. Without enough data, they
cannot accurately predict the likelihood of an incident
and any associated costs. To cover this risk, insurance
companies have been forced to increase the profit ratio.
But as the number of cyber insurance providers and
policies increase, the historical data is growing. As
insurers build their historical and predictive data sets,
and publish the factors that drive their policies, a more
accurate understanding of the business costs and risks
of IT security will emerge.
A successful DDoS attack can be costly, and the cost
can’t be measured purely by looking at lost earnings.
There are also increased operational costs, opportunity
costs – and the big one – brand and reputational
damage. Many of the costs can minimised if the right
defensive services, solutions and processes are employed.
Anti-DDoS solutions exist to protect the availability of
the services offered and / or utilised by businesses,
but this is just one of their purposes. They are also
there to increase the cost for an attacker to carry out
a successful attack. In a world where some targets
are protected and others aren’t, attackers can identify
and avoid those with protection. This deterrence value
is hard to measure as it means that the number of
attacks a particular target sees decreases while other
targets will see a proportional rise in activity.
Getting the most value out of security
Cyber-insurance should take these factors into account,
but the current lack of widely available empirical
data means in most cases this is not currently the
case. This creates a huge opportunity for specialist insurance
providers, offering creative insurance policies.
For businesses, while the costs and risks around
successful cyber-attacks continue to be more widely
acknowledged, cyber insurance is becoming more
widely adopted. Insurance doesn’t obviate the need for
adequate defenses though, businesses need to be able
to defend themselves.
15 years ago the CIO’s biggest challenge was the same
as the CISO’s biggest challenge today “align the company’s
technology with the business.” Security should
not be perceived as another IT tax.
Cyber risk around DDoS
One of the most prevalent types of attack causing issues
for businesses is the Distributed Denial of Service
Attack (DDoS). DDoS attacks have recently been in
the news due to a number of very high volume attacks
generated from Internet of Things (IoT) botnets. These
volumetric attacks flood the internet connectivity of
the target with traffic, knocking it offline and ensuring
that no one can gain access. Very large volumetric and
more complex DDoS attacks have become frequent due
to the weaponisation of DDoS. Services which allow
anyone to launch a damaging attack are now readily
available and easy to operate.
Darren Anstee
Chief Security Technologist
Arbor Networks
Issue 6 | 103

AFRICA FINANCE
Lessons from retail marketing for
the financial services industry
Customer data attitudes and postures: Breaking down siloes for a better view
Financial businesses are known to
be heavy data users because of their
fundamental service offering. Yet one
of the most data-intensive elements of
financial services is within the marketing
department, as customers are segmented,
weighted and targeted with offers and
communications.
Learnings from the retail sector
The rapid growth of omnichannel retail
has proven the value of treating customers
as individuals by providing tailored
approaches. Retailers recognised the
benefits of personalised communications
and promotions early, going far to boost
engagement and loyalty. The retail
industry has demonstrated just how
important personalisation is to building a
feeling of customer care and confidence.
The financial sector is not isolated from
this trend. Just as retail shoppers, financial
services customers have high expectations
from their service providers. They’re
looking for a tailored, consistent experience
from all of their providers which moves
with them between channels and products.
Financial services firms must recognise
changing habits and preferences and
adjust their product and service mix to
meet consumers’ needs too. It’s essential
they respond to the increasing demand
for convenience by adjusting distribution
channels and offering mobile services,
while remaining relevant to varying
demographics. This requires far more
than a change in attitude. It demands a
revolution in the way banks use their data
to inform decision making.
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AFRICA FINANCE
When used effectively, customer data
can help institutions pinpoint market
trends, predict demand, and assess
risk for improved offerings. Financial
services institutions lead the way by
blending billions of rows of customer and
transaction data. That’s how they identify
and retain at-risk customers, improve
contact centre agent behaviour and
optimise distribution networks. The result
is reduced costs, improved convenience
and a better customer experience.
Given the information security and
privacy issues bound up with the data
that financial institutions hold, and the
personal and professional impact that
misuse or leaks could have, the marketing
function within financial services business
face a very high data quality bar.
The secret to success comes from
identifying specific attributes of
customers and segments to provide
tailored strategies which help the
organisation target and retain customers
in the most appropriate way – with total
accuracy. If a supermarket advertises
a too expensive brand at a consumer,
no harm is done. But if an inappropriate
credit offer is proposed to a banking
customer then expectations may be
raised before massive disillusionment.
It is predictive modelling that enables
the creation of a sophisticated algorithm
of the entire customer journey across
business segments, breaking down any
siloes of information within the business.
Issue 6 | 105

AFRICA BUSINESS
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AFRICA FINANCE
Deriving data value
Financial businesses are of course
necessarily protective about their data,
and usage is generally tightly restricted
to the line of business for which it is
collected. Sharing across departments is
historically limited if not absent altogether.
Without finding a way to change this, it’s
impossible to gain a complete picture of
all customer interactions.
While breaking down siloes and
connecting data within may seem like a
big obstacle, there are analytical tools
that firms can use to empower business
analysts (that is, business people who can
analyse their own data). Tools which let
them access, blend and analyse data from
multiple systems and sources to uncover
hidden insights without relying on IT
specialists or programmers.
Enabling business users with data
analytics is the only way firms can
start providing more tailored, engaging
experiences based on a multidimensional
view of each customer.
And the benefits won’t just begin and
end with just the customer. Access to
sophisticated, user-friendly self-service
data analytics capabilities will also deliver
untold benefits for risk management and
compliance, enabling banks to assess
and optimise risk exposure across
business units.
Putting it into practice
One example where this new view of data
use has been put into practice comes
from ReMark International, provider
of insurance distribution services to
global organisations including HSBC,
Barclaycard, AXA and AIA. ReMark uses
Alteryx to prepare and blend its data to
produce faster insights.
For this initiative, ReMark focuses on
customer lifetime analytics, using ‘joined
up’ predictive models on customer
response, conversion and lapse in
order to understand the most powerful
predictors that drive customer activities
across the pre- and post-sales cycle.
For Mandy Luo, ReMark’s Chief Actuary
and Head of Data Analytics, taking a
predictive modelling approach rather than
a broad strategy has helped achieve a 15-
25 per cent uplift in customer responses.
With a focus on customer-centricity and
looking at customer lifetime analytics,
her team creates customer segments not
just based on tendency to ‘buy’, but also
tendency to ‘pay and stay’.
The activity has resulted in customers
being three times more accepting of upsell
or cross-sell offers.
Mandy believes that the industry understands
that it is insufficient to only focus on any
single customer activity, but that it is still
exploring how this can be improved through
modelling and analytics. This is where data
analysis teams can add massive value –
but not just statistical experts. Self-service
analytical tools allow general business users
within departments to put their business
awareness and skills to use, harnessing data
in new ways to take more informed actions.
Once an organisation has learnt to open the
business to legitimate and safe data use
and expanded its marketing consciousness,
then it is really able to flex its marketing
muscle and use a data-led approach to
customer targeting and management. The
results depend on the goal, but can offer
bigger, better and more efficient marketing
campaigns, leading to higher sales, satisfied
customers and empowered employees.
Chiara Pensato
Director - EMEA
Alteryx Inc
Issue 6 | 107

AFRICA FINANCE
Innovation is opening the
door to a Real Future of
Financial Inclusion
The pace of change and disruptive innovation
happening around us is exhilarating.
We are not only rethinking and reimagining
how people shop, bank, dine, and travel,
we have an incredible potential to address
a very real societal problem: the growing
number of unbanked and underbanked
individuals. At last count, McKinsey &
Company 1 estimated that 2.5 billion of the
world’s adults are currently unbanked, with
just short of 2.2 billion of these in Africa,
Asia, Latin America and the Middle East.
Financial inclusion is about much more than
just having a bank account. At its root level,
it is a key element of social and economic
inclusion. It is about helping people
participate in today’s connected economy.
Reaching the unbanked and underbanked
population is a win for both sides – it can
provide new customers for banks, while
connecting people to financial services
that can help them manage their money,
save and obtain access to a wider range of
welfare benefits.
Many large technology and banking providers
are already looking at how we can address
this problem, alongside governments who
are introducing new policies to support
this. The challenge is to create meaningful
opportunities to bring banking services to
underserved communities.
The problem of financial inclusion is global,
and it is not just a third world problem. It is
true that in developing economies, only 59%
of adults 2 have a traditional bank account.
In India, more than 233 million people
have never been to a bank. But highly
developed economies have challenges
too. A World Bank study showed that
11% of adults in high-income economies
do not have traditional bank accounts.
One 3 U.S. government study showed that
28% of US households are underbanked,
and another recent study 4 estimated that
93 million people in Western Europe are
financially underserved. While solutions
like online payments, mobile banking, and
prepaid cards have made important strides
in promoting financial inclusion, these
sobering numbers make it clear that there is
still a great deal of work to do.
108 | Issue 6

AFRICA FINANCE
There are many ways that technology
can help open the vaults of banking to the
unbanked and the underbanked. Among
these are:
• Video tellers: Imagine an ATM where
you can talk live with a bank teller
24 hours a day on a video screen.
This technology allows banks to
bring a wide range of always-on
services at a fraction of the cost of a
fully-staffed branch. Banks can now
operate branches in low-income and
rural neighbourhoods where it wasn’t
economical or sustainable in the past.
Furthermore, customers have much
more freedom in when they bank -
someone who is holding down two or
three jobs can now talk to a live teller
at 2:00 am just as easily as 2:00 pm.
In some parts of the world, people
have to walk miles to reach a bank, so
imagine the possibilities that can be
created by bringing services to them
in an affordable way.
• Accessibility solutions: New
technology innovations such as
accessible ATMs now make it
easier for people with vision and
hearing impairments, and all types
of disabilities, to access convenient
financial services. NCR has a long
history of creating accessible
ATMs - something we’re particularly
proud of is our current work building
accessibility features for ATMs
that match the highly regarded
accessibility features on smartphones
and tablets so people with disabilities
can bank at an ATM just like they
bank online.
• The cloud for microbusinesses:
Financial inclusion isn’t just about
individuals. It also means giving small
businesses the tools they need to
compete, and this is something that
doesn’t get enough attention. The
cloud is opening new doors for SMBs,
who can now take orders, manage
inventory, accept payments and
forecast demand on a mobile device
at a price they can afford. This is a
powerful competitive advantage and
a great equalizer – you can have the
same reach and access to big data
and analytics as a small business that
a billion-dollar corporation has.
Issue 6 | 109

AFRICA FINANCE
These kinds of innovations are already in
existence, and ready to roll out. However,
if countries are to better support financial
inclusion through technology, there are
several steps they must take. First, they
must have a clear national strategy,
such as the goal set by India to ensure
every household in the country has a
bank account by 2018. This is where the
government needs to play a pivotal role in
encouraging financial inclusion.
Second, public-private partnerships are
essential to ensure that new technologies
reach underserved populations that need
them. Governments and technology
providers need to work together to ensure
that the latest technology is embraced and
capable of reaching a wider audience.
Third, more support is needed to extend
the rollout of fast, reliable broadband
technology, as this will underpin almost
all of the technologies that are essential
to financial inclusion. Without it, other
technology solutions will not succeed.
Perhaps most importantly, countries must
take an omni-channel approach to financial
inclusion. While tools such as digital banking
are immensely powerful, not everyone will
have access to every solution, or will want
digital channels. Likewise, physical channels
themselves are not always the answer.
To open more doors to financial inclusion,
we must not get locked into existing
technologies – the pace of innovation is
too fast for that. Government rules must
be flexible and technology-neutral to allow
the best technologies that drive financial
inclusion to flourish, and technology
providers need to ensure they are embracing
the latest technology innovations in their
products to be able to reach an ever-larger
banking population.
Marija Zivanovic-Smith
Vice President of Corporate Marketing,
Communications and Public Affairs
NCR Corporation
Source:
1
2
3
4
http://www.mckinsey.com/industries/financial-services/ourinsights/counting-the-worlds-unbanked
http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EXTGLOBALFIN/
Resources/8519638-1332259343991/world_bank3_Poster.pdf
http://missionassetfund.org/wp-content/uploads/Evalshort-web-FINAL.pdf
http://newsroom.mastercard.com/news-briefs/europesfinancially-excluded-unmasked-in-new-report/
Issue 6 | 111

AFRICA INTERVIEW
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AFRICA INTERVIEW
Digital
Banking in
Angola
Banco Economico was founded in 2002 under the name
Banco Espírito Santo Angola by a Portuguese banking
group. In 2014, given its main shareholder resolution
(Banco Espirito Santo, Portugal) the shareholder structure
changed profoundly, and the bank was rebranded to
Banco Economico.
Banco Economico is a commercial bank, covering both
individual and corporate clients, commercially organized
around seven client segments: private, affluent and retail
banking for individuals, top corporate, SME, oil, gas and
institutional banking for corporate clients. Each segment
is served by a devoted commercial team. The bank has
75 branches, including 12 corporate centers, one private
banking center and one affluent center and the best digital
channels in Angola.
Eduardo Pinto, COO of Banco Económico has been working
in financial services for 23 years. He spent almost 7
years in Accenture and the last 16 years in management
positions in banks in Portugal, Spain, Libya and Angola and
joined Banco Económico three years ago as COO, to lead its
digital transformation.
Why is incorporating technology into banking key?
What challenges has it brought?
Technology is a key factor for banking service anywhere in
the world in today’s banking paradigm.
Technology is critical to respond to the growing demand
of clients for convenient services, available 24 hours a day,
anywhere. Mobility on banking services is a must, and it is
totally supported by technology.
Technology is also fundamental to produce quality services,
to control operations and lower risks of banking activities,
and to generated efficiency, which is required to have a
competitive pricing.
The main challenges to Banco Económico were to find the
right partners to help us design and develop our multichannels
solution as we already have a complete and
robust infrastructure.
What role does the internet and mobile banking
play in the banking sector of Angola?
In Angola mobile and internet are growing fast. With it,
the development of internet and mobile banking is also
growing. The vast majority of the banks already provide
internet banking for individual and corporate clients with
different grades of service, from just inquiries and internal
transfers to a full-fledged service like our EconomicoNet.
Mobile banking Apps are less common, and only 6 or
7 banks out of the 30 operating on the market have
this service. The usage of digital channels in upper and
corporate segments is growing very fast.
Issue 6 | 113

EconomicoNet App
YOUR BANK
ALWAY s AT HAND
EconomicoNet App
Available for Smartphones
Android IOS
Acessing your account, checking balances. making transfers, reinforcing time deposits, charging your phone and more, is even
easier with EconomicoNet App. Connect to this innovative and secure way of accessing your bank, to conduct banking operations
and have a more comfortable and rested day-to-day.
For more information contact your manager, call: EconomicoDirecto 222 693 610/ 923 166 266 or acess: www.bancoeconomico.ao.
Somos futuro.

AFRICA INTERVIEW
• Security is a major concern for
internet customers. What does Banco
Economico SA do to help ensure a
secure environment?
Security has been a major concern from day one,
and the bank has focused on two dimensions:
technology and clients concerns and behavior.
The bank aims to provide absolute confidentiality,
integrity, and service availability.
On the technology side, the bank has been
using up to date industry solutions and tools to
protect personal and transactional data, such as
cryptography, endpoint detection, and response,
non-signature approaches for endpoint prevention,
user and entity behavior analytics, web filtering or
even remote browsing, among others. The bank also
performs period security checks done by independent
security experts.
On the client behavior and concerns approach, the
bank’s committed to the following activities:
• Information on bank’s policies, procedures and
practices and alerts to risks;
• Advice clients to keep their systems updated and
use endpoint protection solutions;
• Keep clients informed about the latest cyber
security risks;
• Protect transactions with two / three-factor
authentication;
• Force the use of strong passwords and force
them to be updated;
• Provide customers with 24/7 call center support.
• As a leader in Internet banking, what
initiatives do you feel have contributed
to your success?
On the last quarter of 2013, we have designed the
bank’s strategy to become the leader in digital
banking based on four pillars following a digital
transformation plan which included: digital channels,
digital processes, MIS and CRM and infrastructure
and security.
Having a vision of the bank we wanted to be, being able
to define the adequate strategy, execute it in a phased
and effective way, with full support from our Board of
Directors, where the key factors for success. Additionally,
the engagement and enthusiasm of our digital channels
and applications management teams and our technology
partner was also very important. Finally, the fact, that we
are totally committed to offering the best internet service
to our clients in Angola.
• Can you tell us more about the electronic
solutions Banco Economico SA has to
offer?
In 2014 Banco Economico deployed a multi-channel
platform that allowed the bank to launch different
channels, with similar usage experiences and
leveraging on common services, for faster deployment
and reduced cost.
In April 2014 EconomicoNet CORPORATE was the
first service launched based on this architecture. It is
a corporate internet banking solution, with enriched
transactional services, that currently covers almost all
corporate services (all kinds if inquiries and transactions
and the ability to subscribe some products, namely term
deposits) with the exception of credit products.
In mid-2015 we have launched the new EconomicoNet,
for individual customers which is also a full-fledged
service, with the richest service coverage in Angola.
In 2016 we launched two new services. EconomicoNet
App, our mobile banking service for iOS and Android
devices and Consut@Cartão an innovative service for
corporate credit cards users.
• What other innovative products or services
have you created to meet customers’
needs?
For Banco Economico’s executive team, to respond
to the needs of the different client segments with
innovative products is a must. Given that, the bank has
been developing innovative services on the Angolan
banking market.
In October we have launched two new digital services:
EconomicoNet App, two apps (iOS and Android) Apps;
Consult@Cartão, a web-based solution for corporate
cards users.
Issue 6 | 115

AFRICA INTERVIEW
Additionally, the bank has launched in 2016
and is preparing to launch in the coming
week’s new services, namely:
• Domestic collection services;
• Directs debits;
• ATMs payments;
• Cash collection services;
• Innovative tax payment services.
• What are your future plans for
development?
We have just launched EconomicoNet App
for iOS and Android mobile and Consult@
Cartão.
C
On 2107 we will focus on:
M
• A new service for banking and nonbanking
clients. We are evaluating the
implementation of a Mobile Payments /
Mobile Wallet service;
Y
CM
MY
CY
• Additional functionalities on current
digital channels;
CMY
K
• Usability changes, to further improve
user experience.
Eduardo Pinto
COO
Banco Económico
Issue 6 | 109
116 | Issue 6

118 Issue 6Europe

EUROPE BANKING
Customer
Engagement
in Retail Banking
Jason Hemingway, CMO of Thunderhead discusses how retail banks can take
advantage of new technology to gain detailed insight into their customers.
Service is king for retail banks. How can they
use technology to get the edge in a hugely
competitive industry?
“Technology is sometimes perceived as a threat
to traditional retail banks, but as they struggle to
meet the ever increasing expectations of digitally
savvy consumers and respond to growing
competition from fintech firms, technology could
also be their saviour.
“The key to delivering good service and
developing long lasting relationships with
customers is a deep understanding of the inthe-moment
wants and needs of each individual
customer, whenever and wherever they interact,
and a commitment to meet these requirements
consistently across the business.
“Like any relationship, understanding starts with
listening. Banks needs to listen to each individual
customer journey in real time and use this insight
to meet customer expectations every time,
irrespective of department, device or touchpoint.
This is where new technology can play a huge part.
“Using the latest technology, it’s now possible for
retail banks to see, in real time, their customer
journeys across channels – such as website,
mobile app, call centre, and in-branch – and
join up these interactions to provide a seamless
and consistent experience. They can use
this technology to connect departmental and
technology siloes, and ensure that at every
touchpoint they have the most relevant and
appropriate conversation with the customer
based on their individual needs.
Issue 6 | 119

EUROPE BANKING
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EUROPE BANKING
With the right technology, doing this at
scale is a reality today, and if retail banks
are serious about customer centricity and
maintaining a competitive advantage,
they should be exploring the ways new
technology can help them. Customers aren’t
going to wait around.”
Customer journeys are more complicated
than ever – taking place in-branch, on
mobile, online and via telephone. How can
banks keep on top of this?
“The first step is to recognise that the
journey is the customer’s journey, not yours.
At Thunderhead we developed the concept
of the ‘customer-managed journey.’
“The next step is to get an understanding
of the journeys your customers are taking.
Some organisations use journey mapping,
but while this approach demonstrates a
commitment to trying to understand the
journey, it’s limited in what it can deliver.
It’s a slow and labour intensive process
that can, at best, only deliver a static
view and one that’s based on an insideout
view of the customer, planning how
the brand ‘thinks’ customers will behave
across touchpoints.
“To stay on top of customer journeys,
brands need the ability to visualise them
in real time and understand what their
customers are doing so they can take the
appropriate action.
“This may sound like a daunting task,
especially for a large organisation with
legacy technology and many different
departments, but by using the right
technology it’s relatively simple to begin
listening to the customer journey. It’s an
iterative process that can start with looking
at specific touchpoints to uncover where
the quick wins are and what will provide
the fastest value to the business and the
customer. Over time, this can be extended to
touchpoints throughout the entire customer
journey and be used to drive the necessary
collaboration and customer centricity
throughout the organisation.”
Trust continues to be an issue for
banks. Do they need to adapt their
communications to strengthen
relationships with customers?
“Trust is the foundation of customer
relationships and is key to building
engagement. Creating trust is based on
delivering value to the customer consistently
over time. Every customer must be treated
as if they’re the most important.
“There is nothing more frustrating than
being the recipient of bad marketing –
unsolicited marketing messages, offers for
irrelevant products, or even products you
already have – this does not engender trust.
We are now in an age where badly targeted,
aimless, marketing spiel is unacceptable,
and is increasingly confused with fraudulent
activities like phishing scams.
“To build stronger and more engaged
relationships with their customers,
banks already have the core customer
information they need to get started, but
they must augment this with customer
preferences and journey insights to ensure
that communications, interactions, and
experiences are personal and relevant at
every step in the journey.”
How do you think marketing will change for
retail banks in 2017?
“Customer engagement will grow in
importance and in 2017, customer
experience will truly become the
battleground for competitive advantage
in banking. The marketing team will play
a key role in this as they become wholly
responsible for the end-to-end customer
journey and the driving force behind making
the changes needed for banks to become
truly customer centric.
“This will mean focusing resources on the
customer journey, using journey analytics
to understand and improve experiences,
and focusing efforts across the business
to break down silos, creating a seamless
conversation that truly meet the needs of
each unique and individual customer.”
Jason Hemingway
CMO
Thunderhead
Issue 6 | 121

EUROPE BUSINESS
How professional firms will use
mobile technology to engage
with their clients in 2017
2016 is the year that the mobile became
supreme. The tipping point came early with the
publication of the 2016 Ofcom report into ‘Adults’
Media Use and Attitudes’, which revealed that
Smartphones had replaced computers for Internet
use and two thirds (65%) of all adults now use their
Smartphone to go online.
In today’s mobile world, the Smartphone is
the ‘glue’ that binds people and information,
businesses and their clients together. A new
world is opening up.
But where is this new mobile world set
to take professional firms such as
accountants, financial advisers and
lawyers in 2017?
There can be no doubt
that the business world is
changing because of the
rate of mobile adoption
of devices such
as Smartphones
and Tablets and
their use will
undoubtedly
increase over
the next 12
months.
These devices are now used for all kinds of
business activity: for talking to customers,
for raising quotes, creating invoices,
capturing receipts and for searching for
information, guidance and help that is
relevant to their business. A Smartphone
or Tablet holds all that’s important to that
person, whether its choice of Music App,
Sports App or Financial App.
Capturing data digitally
The transformation of the tax system by
HMRC to fit the digital age will result in
major changes to the way accountants
interact with their clients. The new
system is still in the planning stage with
a consultation period ending in November
2016. Following that, the time scales for
the introduction of the new Making Tax
Digital regime will be announced and
Business UK will need to adapt to
making quarterly returns online.
This change represents a real
opportunity for accountants to
harness the power of mobile
technology and change the
way they communicate
with their clients.
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EUROPE BUSINESS
Because businesses will need to
electronically record their income and
expenses and submit a summary of
that information electronically to HMRC,
accountants can help make the process
simpler by providing a collection point
for this data. And the most obvious place
to collect and share this data in the new
mobile world is via an App.
A custom App quickly becomes the first
point of contact for the client and it can
also provide on-the-go access to online
accounts and to the client’s accounting
software of choice including Xero, Kashflow,
Sage or Quickbooks etc.
The client submits all the core information
required using the App in a way that will help
them get used to the process in advance
of the introduction of the new regime and
smooth the transition.
With an App, it is possible to provide a
unique and high value way to provide clients
with advice and help at their fingertips in
a way that until now has not been
possible. Every time the owner opens
his or her Smartphone, the firm’s
icon is immediately visible and it
provides an easy and effective way
to reinforce the position as a key
business adviser by bringing all
the information, calculations
and systems into one
easily accessible place.
An App also proactively
promotes the firm and
its’ services to staff,
business partners
and prospects.
Effective messaging within an App
Every week it seems there are reports of law
firms having their emails hacked and clients
ending up transferring funds to fraudsters’
accounts. And this problem extends to
all professional service firms that hold
confidential client financial information and
will not go away until an alternative to email
is found.
The Ofcom report found that Apps are seen
as a trusted method for interaction and
people use the same few all the time so this
would appear to be the natural next step
for firms looking for optimal security. All
messages can take place within the App,
which ensures that the client knows that
any message has come from his or her
accountant and not someone claiming to be
so. These ‘Push Notifications’ are created
easily and sent to the client’s Smartphone
instantly and research shows that they are
always read, with a 93% open rate. The other
bonus is that these push notifications are
shown to be six times more effective than
email marketing.
Mobile is the way forward and professional
firms will need to be visible on their
clients’ Smartphones? Apps help cement
relationships by becoming the go-to anchor
point in the always-on, mobile world.
Whenever the client needs information, the
accountant is literally just a tap away – even
when the office is closed. Only today, it goes
much further than that. The App is not just
a symbol of modern thinking; it’s a tool that
has a key role to play in reducing the cost of
advice and developing new ways to engage
consumers. It’s this ease of accessibility
that is helping accountants to ‘lock-in’ their
clients’ loyalty.
Mobile technology is a tool for business
to leverage in a similar way to websites
10 years ago. Apps have now gone
mainstream and will continue to grow in
popularity in 2017 with Smartphone users
spending 90% of their time within an App.
With all the evidence pointing to a clear
preference for business communication
within an App, professional firms will need
to rethink how they engage with their
clients. As it is clients that are driving this
change, we predict that 2017 will be the
year there is a landslide change in their
use. Apps are the way forward.
Joel Oliver
CEO
MyFirmsApp
Joel Oliver is CEO of MyFirmsApp,
the world leader in App and mobile
technology in the Professional Service
Sector. Download a copy of a new
guide ‘A Lighthouse in the Digital Fog’
at http://www.myfirmsapp.com
Issue 6 | 123

EUROPE BUSINESS
How to
Keep Pace
with the
Changing
Global
Manufacturing
Landscape
Whilst manufacturing earnings and exports
continue to stimulate economic prosperity,
the nations that are at the top of the global
manufacturing landscape are changing. To
stave off the competition, those countries
– such as Germany, the UK and the US –
with a historical manufacturing legacy, are
needing to invest in high-tech infrastructure
and education to keep ahead of the pack;
something that is triggering a technological
renaissance, according to PWC 1 . As the
digital and physical worlds of manufacturing
converge, advanced technologies have
become even more essential for manufacturers
and their wider competitiveness.
Keeping smart
A recent Deloitte Global Manufacturing
Competitiveness Index 2 showed that the
traditional manufacturing hubs are continuing
to dominate the manufacturing
landscape. Whilst these countries, on the
whole, are expected to hold their own in the
top ten over the next five years, it expects
Asia Pacific nations such as India, Vietnam,
Malaysia and Indonesia to all make great
strides by 2020. Deloitte puts this increased
market competitiveness down to their low
124 | Issue 6
labour costs, agile manufacturing methods,
demographic trends and market growth.
Deloitte highlights that “Smart Factories”
in the US, Japan and Europe, as well as
Industry 4.0 initiatives, will need to play a
decisive role to ensure they keep ahead of
the emerging global competition from the
East in the future.
The need for a digital transformation
According to another report from PwC 3 , Industry
4.0 initiatives – undergoing a digital
transformation to remain competitive – will
add, on average, 2.9per cent to revenues
and contribute a 3.6 per cent cost reduction
per annum over the next five years. First
movers who combine high investment
levels with advanced digitisation are set
to achieve even more dramatic gains. To
succeed, manufacturers – especially older
manufacturing businesses – will need
robust data analytics capabilities and need
to focus on developing the internal culture
to drive the transformation.
It is interesting to compare the industry
attitudes of business leaders throughout
the globe in regard to the risks and opportunities
of business growth. A recent Epicor
study found whilst 56 per cent of executives
in China cite technology as an important
factor in helping business growth in the past
twelve months; whilst 29 per cent in the UK
and only 12 per cent in Sweden thought the
same. When asked what factors promote
the growth of medium-sized companies in
particular, technology leadership was higher,
with 68 per cent among respondents from
China, 38 per cent in the UK and 25 per cent
in Sweden agreeing.
A potential skills gap
In tandem with technology, a skilled workforce
is, according to the same Deloitte
study as above, the most significant factor
in aiding competitiveness in the manufacturing
industry. In fact, the recruitment,
development and retention of staff is just
as important as adopting new collaboration
models across an organisation.
There was more agreement from respondents
to the Epicor survey when it came
to the importance of a skilled workforce
to drive business growth. 52 per cent of
decision-makers from Germany, 52 per cent
in India and 48 in Australia all agreed in its

EUROPE BUSINESS
importance. The UK was the only real anomaly,
with only a third of respondents (32 per
cent) citing a skilled workforce as being
imperative, perhaps due to the UK having
such a shortage of skills engineers 4 .
However, 63 per cent of respondents from
the UK conceded that technology was the
best way to compensate for the shortage.
Compared to 51 per cent of respondents
from Germany, and only 22 per cent of
respondents from Sweden.
When it comes to using technology in order
to free employees from mundane tasks,
there was agreement, with 76 per cent of
China, 78 per cent of India and two thirds (66
per cent) of UK business leaders agreeing it
was important.
Keeping ahead of the pack
There is no doubt that continuing to embrace
technology will play a significant role
in the manufacturing sector. Digitally transforming
the production processes can lower
costs, accelerate enablement and ensure
that a manufacturer is able to fend off the
competition. Global competitors, especially
new market entrants, are gaining ground due
to their own investment of technology; and
by their very nature they are often more agile
and able to respond to changing market
demands quickly.
Yet, it is important that manufacturers not
only focus on the digital transformation of
the production process but also understand
the importance of access to real-time data.
With ERP (enterprise resource planning),
manufacturers can think about their businesses
from a fresh perspective, focus on
core growth activities and drive efficiencies.
Nick Castellina, Vice President, Principal
Analyst Aberdeen Group:
“Top performers must select a solution that
can combat manufacturing pressures and
emulates a modern technology environment.
This means selecting functional, collaborative
solutions that support real-time
1
2
decision making, agility, and collaboration
through capabilities such as mobility and
analytics. Indeed, top-performing manufacturers
select user-friendly, but powerful,
3
solutions that enable users to easily access
the information they need, and convert that 4
information to actions and smart decisions
5
that enable growth.” 5
Stuart Hall
Sales Director
Epicor Software - UK and Ireland
Source:
[1] http://www.strategyand.pwc.com/perspectives/2016-
manufacturing-trends
[2] Deloitte im 2016 Global Manufacturing Competitiveness
Index, http://www2.deloitte.com/global/en/pages/
manufacturing/articles/global-manufacturingcompetitiveness-index.html
[3] PwC: Industry 4.0: Building the digital enterprise,
http://www.pwc.de/de/digitale-transformation/industrie-
4-0-unternehmen-weltweit-investieren-massiv-indigitalisierung.html
[4] http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/
article-3592534/Britain-s-demand-jobs-revealed-pay.html
[5] http://www.aberdeen.com/research/11292/11292-rreasy-erp-manufacturing/content.aspx
Issue 6 | 125

EUROPE ASIA TECHNOLOGY INSURANCE
Cyber Insurance:
Protecting the
Financial Industry
126 108 | Issue 65

EUROPE ASIA TECHNOLOGY
INSURANCE
It’s no surprise that the financial services
industry is a major target of cybercrime.
According to a recent Lloyd’s research into
the knowledge and awareness of cyber
risk among European enterprises, nearly 9
out of 10 banking and finance businesses
have suffered a cyber breach in the last
five years. It costs cyber criminals time
and money to pull off complicated attacks
and the target has to be valuable enough
to justify that expense. For criminals,
having access to customer bank balances
is an obvious source of intrinsic value,
but competitors may also target financial
institutions in order to steal valuable trading
algorithms, gain insight into trading positions
and strategy or numerous other forms
of financial business IP or trade secrets.
However, threats exist internally as well as
externally – and they can be both deliberate
and entirely unintentional. Malicious insiders
and accidental breaches can cause just
as much damage.
Over the past few years, cyber-attacks
targeting banks have resulted in countless
interruptions to business. In November
2016, an attack breached 20,000 accounts
at Tesco Bank. The company had to refund
customers £2.5m and is currently facing
potential fines. Earlier this year, in January,
millions of clients were affected as HSBC
saw a DDoS attack take down its internet
banking for a number of hours The systems
were successfully defended, but users
were still locked out for hours on the first
pay day of the year. Another breach, which
was discovered just a couple of weeks ago,
affected India’s third largest private sector
lender – Axis Bank. An offshore hacker had
entered the system. In 2015, Dridex, a form
of malware used by cyber-gangs to steal
payment card data, enabled criminals to
steal around £20m in the UK alone. Today,
data is the lifeline of the financial services
industry. As a result, legislative bodies are
forcing companies to better protect their
customers from the fallout of cyber events
or face the consequences of their inaction.
The EU General Data Protection Regulation
(GDPR will introduce strict data handling
laws from 2018. Any organisation dealing
with EU citizens’ data will need to report
breaches within 72 hours of their discovery.
Additionally, fines of up to €20 million or
4% of global annual turnover – whichever
is highest - will be imposed in cases when
data was insufficiently secured. Incidents
such as the Tesco Bank breach could result
in fines up to £1.9bn under the new GDPR
regulation. The costs of breaches are felt
far beyond the timescale of an attack due
to regulatory investigations and severe
financial penalties, as well drops in share
prices and long-term impacts on business
reputation and customer attrition. These
can all cause immediate loss of customers
and an ongoing decline in customer acquisition
rates.
As a reputational risk, it’s encouraging that
cyber security is now increasingly considered
to be an executive responsibility in the
banking and finance sector. 47% of CEOs
now take personal responsibility for managing
cyber breaches. However, awareness
of the GDPR shows that the media push
around the new rules has raised only superficial
awareness amongst business leaders,
given that 53% of those leaders claim they
know “little” or “nothing” about how the
GDPR can affect their business.
To be fully prepared, businesses must face
cybercrime and wider cyber breaches with a
proactive attitude. Although 9 in 10 financial
institutions reported a cyber breach in the
last five years, only 46% are concerned that
this may happen again. Considering the stir
that fintech is causing this industry it’s only
to fair to assume that as businesses continue
to embrace technology we’ll inevitably
experience an increase in cyber breaches.
Wherever digitalisation and profits lead,
cybercrime is quick to follow.
Cyber breaches come about as a result of
countless, highly complex forms. Phishing
emails for example are often indiscernible
from legitimate email – especially
for the average employee. Whaling targets
specific individuals through cleverly
individually crafted emails, impersonating
a senior executive, colleague or business
partner. Ransomware, one of the most
popular forms of attacks, allows perpetrators
to encrypt the entire data footprint
of an organisation, demanding ransom in
exchange for the decryption key. This can
effectively halt company operations and
threaten critical data. However, it is not just
cyber criminals that organisations need to
be aware of. Insider threats and accidental
breaches are also pressing risks that must
be proactively addressed – businesses need
to focus on “securing the human” as well as
the technology.
Given this unavoidable relationship between
tech, business and cybercrime, it’s crucial
that companies stay educated and informed
on their exposure to cyber risk, and the best
ways to mitigate and transfer the risk. As
the threat evolves it’s not enough to build a
wall – businesses need to have support in
the aftermath of a breach. Cyber insurance
has developed into much more than just a
financial pay out - it provides companies
with the knowledge and best practice to
protect themselves from cyber-threats, and
can protect a financial company’s balance
sheet by providing the support and consultancy
needed to recover when the worst
does happen.
Put simply, businesses are not fully prepared
unless they have cyber insurance in
place. The nature of threats is constantly
developing, and differs from business to
business – it is vital to ensure that the issue
is in the hands of experts. Managers and
decision makers owe it to their customers
and employees to make sure their business
is appropriately protected and insured. That
process starts now.
Dan Trueman
Unit Head of Cyber with Novae
Lloyd’s
Issue 56 | 109 127

EUROPE BUSINESS
128 | Issue 6

EUROPE BUSINESS
MIFID II: SHOULD NEW
REGULATIONS STIPULATE
VOICE RECORDINGS BE
RECORDED FOR LONGER?
Over the years, one of the big questions
asked by compliance officers is whether
the transcription of voice recordings to text
should oblige regulated trade firms to retain
recordings for longer.
In some jurisdictions there is a difference
in the required retention period between
textual electronic communications, such as
email and Bloomberg messages, and that of
voice recordings. In Europe the difference in
the retention period is removed by the rules
proposed by the European Securities and
Markets Authority (ESMA) under the MiFID
II regulation. Under MiFID, all records, text
and voice, will be required to be retained
for a period of five years. By contrast, in the
United States for example, the Commodities
Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC) rules
require voice calls to be retained for one year
while text communications are retained for
five years.
MiFID II and voice recordings
MiFID II also requires firms to conduct
surveillance of their employees’
communications to ensure the firm is
compliant with market rules. Effective
surveillance on voice calls will require
the deployment of clever technologies
that can extract the ‘substance’ of these
highly specialised conversations and
deliver risk and scenario based insights to
a knowledgeable reviewer who can then
determine if any wrongdoing has occurred.
We are subsequently seeing the rise of
speech-to-text, a technology that transcribes
what is said on a voice recording into a
textual representation of the call. But does
this text, produced from a call recording,
make a call an electronic communication?
The answer is no. The derived transcribed
text record is not a communication per se
and therefore cannot be included in the
communications retention rules.
Issue 6 | 129

EUROPE BUSINESS
Indeed, it’s important that businesses are
aware that under MiFID II:
• Converting speech to text does not
allow a firm to discard the original
recording – as that would be a
clear breach of the requirements.
The original record must always be
preserved
• Once analysed, and a text version is
created, there is no requirement to
retain the transcription
• The associated metadata of a call, such
as the time, date and numbers dialed,
along with the servers and systems
that a call is tagged with, are not
derivative data. All call metadata must
be retained for as long as the call audio
itself is retained
• If the transcribed data is re-sent by
electronic means (email, for example)
then that new communication needs
to be retained for the appropriate
amount of time as a communication in
its own right
• If a call transcript is available, and has
been used as part of the surveillance
process to flag a call for further review,
then in the event of a regulator request
for call logs, it should be recorded
in the same way that you would if
delivering an email that had already
been reviewed in your submission to
the regulator
New Technologies for Compliant Call
Capture, Transcription
facsimile copy of the original recording. It
may contain errors and it is much harder
to convey inflection, pauses and – critically
– intent in transcribed speech than when
listening to a call recording.
Most financial markets records
retention regulations require electronic
communications and voice recordings to be
preserved, as far as possible, in their original
form. This has always been problematic
for voice recordings, as any voice engineer
will attest. The quality of audio recordings
is always a balance between the space
required for storage and the audio’s
fidelity and usability. Fortunately, newer
communication devices are offering pristine
audio for compliant call capture, retrieval
and analytics to meet regulator requests.
Financial organisations are increasingly
investigating transcription and speech
analytics capabilities that will be used
to increase productivity and detect
bad behaviour. Ultimately, however,
transcriptions should not increase the
retention period for voice recordings. There
are too many elements of a call that are
subjective, and turning it into text will not
provide a true representation of the call
itself. Instead, organisations should be
focusing on finding means of capturing
calls more efficiently and effectively so that
they can remain compliant without the risk
of any misunderstandings.
There are more reasons that suggest that
transcripts should not change the retention
period. While transcription technologies
have improved substantially in accuracy
and language coverage in recent years, no
technology will be 100 percent accurate.
While incredibly useful in surveillance and
productivity, the transcription will not be a
Robert Powell
Director of Compliance
IPC Systems
Issue 6 | 131

EUROPE INTERVIEW
132 | Issue 6

EUROPE INTERVIEW
Current Banking
Trends in Macedonia
Global Banking & Finance Review spoke with Mr. Vladimir Eftimoski, CEO of
Stopanska banka a.d. Bitola to find out the current banking trends in Macedonia.
What are the current trends you see taking place in the banking
sector in Macedonia? What are the challenges and opportunities?
Macedonian economy is in a specific and complex condition.
Early parliamentary elections have been delayed twice so far
and for a moment the political crisis overflew the banking
system resulting in withdrawal of part of the retail deposits.
What is positive and perspective is that retail clients relatively
fast recognized that the banking system in the country is safe
and stable, thus the deposit return process commenced, even
increasing the scope before the crisis. Unfortunately, in the
beginning the will and responsibility of those who should have
surpassed the political crisis was missing, but is now finally
resolved by dialogue and arrangement. Other trends in the
banking sector mainly depended on amendments to a range of
regulations which directly and indirectly caused changes in the
banking market. Starting from amendments to the Public Notary
Law, Enforcement Law, up to the decisions of the Central bank
related to the treatment of writing-off non-performing loans and
foreign transactions. As a result, in the last period, the banking
sector as well as the entire economy was rather inert. Crediting
trend is not increasing but is anyhow stable and positive, while
deposit portfolio, except for the short crisis period from April-
May, can be evaluated as positive and exceptionally stable. These
challenges for the group of medium-sized banks, as Stopanska
banka a.d. Bitola, are extremely advantageous. They represent
a possibility for greater increase of the market share and
opportunity to clear our loan portfolio. We have quite successfully
utilized the banking market inertness; thus by 30.06.2016 the
Bank increased total assets by 14%, dominated by retail loans
by 39% compared to the same period last year. The Bank has
additionally cleared up nonperforming loan portfolio.
The participation of nonperforming loans in the total loan
portfolio is 2.97% and the nonperforming loan coverage ratio
is 123.2%, being an extraordinary sound indicator for the
Bank operation.
How are customer behaviours and the increased movement
towards cashless transactions changing banking in Macedonia?
Related to this issue Macedonia is advantageous compared
to the countries in the region. We have good communication
infrastructure, strong mobile network coverage and Internet
access throughout most of the country. Most of the population
gravitates in the Skopje region, reducing even further the need
of better infrastructure connections. In this setup majority
of corporate clients are focused to electronic services and
payments, while retail still prefers cash payments, especially
aged groups of clients and retired persons. The trend of
cashless payments and electronic services, is intensified with
the renewal of the client base and replacement of pensioners
with a new client base. The banking system, but especially
medium-sized banks such as Stopanska Banka a.d. Bitola, are
focused on introducing new and optimizing existing electronic
services. In the past period, the Bank has upgraded the bank
electronic system, introduced M-payment System, the website
upgrade process is ongoing, and issue and processing of two
new brands of MasterCard has started. To induce the trend of
use of these services, in addition to introducing relevant bonus
schemes and beneficial provisions for their use, technical
support is provided to aged clients indicating their advantages,
possibility of 24-hour access and facilitation related to fast
services without queuing and personal presence.
Issue 6 | 133

EUROPE INTERVIEW
Let’s talk for a minute about product
development. What drives product creation at
Stopanska banka a.d. Bitola? What role does
technology play?
Our bank pays special attention to its
permanent development in the banking
industry, as well as to the needs of younger
generation clients. It is of particular importance
that this occurs in conditions where the clients
have still not changed their habits entirely,
and to serve them properly, a widespread
branch network is required throughout the
country. In addition to investing in new services
and technologies we are oriented to their
promotion and marketing. Product and service
development is not a guarantee that they will
be accepted in the market. The constant need
for their promotion and clarification to the
clients, is what differentiates us from the other
banks in the market. Our promotion and sales
are not oriented only in direction of meeting
targets. Our basic mission with the promotion
is presenting the benefits offered by the new
services and technology.
Has the demand for credit from corporates
increased?
Macedonia is a country with a small open
economy, where as a principle, external
economic movements do not have major
impact on the domestic product demand and
spending. In other words, we are a small-scale
production country in absolute numbers,
and irrelevant of how much we produce, the
quantity can be absorbed by foreign markets, if
competitive products are offered. Consequently,
our corporate sector was not considerably
affected by the world economic crisis, thus the
need for borrowing did not reduce. However,
in conditions of internal political crisis, the
investors’ concern increased as numerous
investment projects were postponed. Therefore,
as I mentioned in the beginning, the resolution
of this political deadlock is a key factor
for further development of our economy.
Corporative loan cycle increased, but with
different investment purposes.
134 | Issue 6

EUROPE INTERVIEW
In the past long-term investment loans
were required, but now the emphasis is put
on liquidity, working capital and investment
refinancing. These changes encompass
further increase of corporate loans, which now
estimates to 10% on annual level. Stopanska
banka a.d. Bitola relatively fast adapted to
the new situation. Now our credit conditions
and products and focused on SME segment
where there is greatest need for borrowing. In
2015 it raised by 15% which is over the market
increase. This increase mainly occurred in
the SME segment, which is more profitable
compared to segment of large corporates.
In what ways does your corporate banking
division assist clients in managing their risk
and enhance their revenue?
Risk management is one of the key factors
accounted in our Bank, in terms of balance
growth and development of the Bank. We have
a special sector and a special service in charge
of risk management.
Such operational organization is in compliance
with the world’s banking standards dividing
sales and risks. Sales Sector is responsible
for monitoring business and clients’ plans
by analysing their balance, while Risk Sector
executes monitoring, but in terms of risks. This
sector perceives soft-spots in their balances,
makes analyses of the cash flow during
the loan period and the financial repayment
capacity of the relevant client. In this analysis,
sales are mainly focused on advisory and
analytical aspects of income increase, while
the organizational part of risk management
makes analyses whether the relevant client
has dimensioned its business in optimum
profitable range and whether its liquidity and
solvency is sufficient to realize the undertaking.
This symbiosis of both analyses are key for the
client to undertake sufficiently acceptable risk
to increase its profitability, and at the same time
avoiding the exposure of the Bank to a loan risk.
Issue 6 | 135

Global Oriented Merchant
Banking Group Offering Institutional
Capital Market Services
EVI Global Group Limited
Level 31, Vero Centre,
48 Shortland Street
Auckland, New Zealand
EVI Global Group Limited
is registered under FSP310986

EUROPE INTERVIEW
Do you have any ongoing projects you’d like to share with us?
Stopanska Banka a.d. Bitola is continuously developing numerous
projects. In addition to constant internal projects to optimize our
operations and operational technology, we permanently develop
projects in terms of introduction of new services and products. We
are currently completing three key projects aimed at development
of new, user-friendly website, introducing two new MasterCard
products with contactless payment, M-payment service and a
multichannel distribution system. And we will not stop here. We
have a number of projects upgrading our information system. This
will additionally simplify and accelerate the processes, helping us to
become more competitive and efficient in the market.
support further development and growth of the Bank. The assets
from sales of the corporate bond will be used for credit activities
in corporate sector which will support the Bank growth in the
next five years. In this period, we will intensify our performance,
increasing our market share, profitability and efficiency. Our
intention is to impose ourselves as a factor in the Macedonian
banking market, with dominant domestic capital that will be
interesting for acquisition or recapitalization by a foreign strategic
partner. This approach, in the technology segment as well as the
other financial operational segments, will distinguish Stopanska
banka a.d. Bitola as a most innovative, modern and efficient bank
in the Macedonian banking market.
What are your current development plans?
At the moment we are focused on an activity that has not been
executed by any bank or company in Macedonia. We are in process
of issuing corporate bond as a hybrid financial instrument. This
idea is part of the strategy to attract strategic investors that will
Mr. Vladimir Eftimoski
CEO
Stopanska banka a.d. Bitola
Issue 6 | 137

EUROPE BUSINESS
The Subscription
Economy –
a new way to travel
Brits have traditionally been focused
on owning things – from cars to record
collections. However, the ‘ownership’
obsession is on its way out and is paving
the way to the subscription economy.
The rise in this non-ownership culture is
changing the way people interact with
businesses and their surroundings. At
the heart of this shift are people who are
happy to subscribe to the outcomes they
want, when they want them, without an
outright purchase.
Our expectations have changed drastically:
on-demand services increasingly
sit at the top of consumer lifestyle
essentials, with the likes of Spotify and
Amazon Prime creating new business
models which are leaving competitors
behind. They marry on-demand instant
services with personalised recommendations
all informed by other users’
recommendations and the easiest, manageable
subscription models.
Importantly, these services are built upon
an aggregation of third party sellers into
an easily accessible marketplace, be they
Amazon retailers’ products, music company
recordings or films. This could be
seen as a threat to third party providers
as they are then challenged to give consumers
what they want, at the right price
and with the service levels they demand.
However, it is also a real opportunity
to reinvigorate these third parties
and grow the total marketplace for
all. Music streaming provides a good
example. Following the music industry’s
catastrophic collapse in the late 90s,
Spotify resurrected sales through its
subscription-streaming model, turning
the industry profitable once again.
Reports indicate the retail value of music
subscription-streaming services has
hit $1bn in the first half of 2016 up by
more than $500m in just one year.
The mind-set of modern day consumers
has changed, and it’s not just in
the consumption of entertainment, but
almost every aspect of life. The movement
away from ownership will see the
subscription culture transform an array
of industries, with transport next on the
consumer agenda.
The shift in transport
This shift towards the transport service
model - or Mobility as a Service
(MaaS) - is being driven by two mutually
reinforcing trends. Firstly, there is the
generational shift to the sharing economy.
Millennials are technology natives
who have lives built on networking and
sharing. This has seen companies such
as Airbnb and Deliveroo flourish and has
now extended its reach to transport with
BlaBlaCar, Zipcar, Enterprise Car and
JustPark emerging and growing. The
modern-day traveller now expects transport
to be easily accessible, convenient
and seamless.
Secondly, the growth of mobile and
wireless connected devices in home and
pocket, coupled with fast connectivity
speeds, has catalysed this generation.
This light infrastructure enables on-demand
internet based choice and booking
wherever or whenever needed. Add real
time traffic updates, delay notifications,
platform alterations and intelligent
journey planners, and the full the mobility
service economy is now available at the
tap of a smartphone screen.
The next stage - the truly fundamental
shift in the transport service model -
will be the bringing together of all the
siloed transport, buses, taxis, trains
and car clubs, into a full subscription
MaaS service.
138 | Issue 6

EUROPE BUSINESS
Issue 6 | 139

EUROPE BUSINESS
140 | Issue 6

EUROPE BUSINESS
This type of service is beginning to take
shape: in Birmingham, a trial called Car
Freedom is providing a one stop service
to older people. The service matches
them with the right mobility and provides
all the support they need (including customer
service and peer to peer support),
when they receive a concessionary pass;
transitioning to reducing their car use or
giving up the car completely. A similar
service, PicknMix, is being designed by
young people, to offer the same support
for their own mobility transitions. Whim,
a Finnish app aims to provide packages
of mobility to suit all needs without the
need to own a car.
A shift in the UK?
The UK transport industry is on the
edge of a fundamental shift to an integrated
service economy. There is still
a need for infrastructure spending and
upgrades but the focus must now be to
obtain the most from that infrastructure,
managing demand and pulling
the whole transport system together to
attract and retain new users.
This requires a fundamental shift to
service and support – only made possible
by placing the user at the heart of
design. New ways of packaging transport,
delivering support, creating transport
marketplaces and having integrated ways
to pay, including subscription models can
match changing and evolving needs. The
requirement to own a car will reduce and
ultimately become a thing of the past.
Spotify has excelled by identifying a culture
shift and addressing the change with
a solution which worked for the user, ultimately
growing the market for music and
rejuvenating an entire industry. Transport
must now follow.
Where are we going?
A major step toward this required level
of change is happening right now as The
Bus Bill continues its way through the
House of Lords. It will see local authorities
in England and Wales given the power to
franchise its bus services. This will enable
them to set routes, frequencies, pricing
and quality standards that can support
local residents.
This Bill will allow the often confusing
price structures and route layouts to be
simplified and enable Oyster-like smart
ticketing. This will allow MaaS to flourish
by making it easier to embed such
stable public transport services into a
package of mobility.
The transport industry is going places;
however, it must move to the subscription
economy to take that large leap forward.
With the right package of transport,
combined with personalised support, the
mobility service subscription based economy
can grow the market for non-owned
transport and consign the term “public
transport” to the history books.
Dr Steve Cassidy
Managing Director, Viaqqio
ESP Group
Issue 6 | 141

EUROPE TECHNOLOGY
What’s Next for Blockchain:
Disruptive Technology and
New Regulations
Blockchain technology has received a
lot of attention for its potential to revolutionise
different sectors, and financial
services is widely believed to be the area
with the greatest potential for distributed
ledger technology (DLT) to transform and
disrupt existing processes.
Should its use be regulated and, if so, what
shape would that take? How to respond to
these questions is a challenge for product
developers, financial markets participants
and regulators alike. And, when should
the regulator step in? Patrick Armstrong,
a Senior Risk Analysis Officer at the European
Securities and Markets Authority
has recently described 1 the answer to this
question as the “regulatory “tipping point”
– the point between “too small to care”
and “too large to ignore””. I suspect that
most observers would agree that the scale
is somewhat tipping towards the latter.
The regulators’ stance, at least in the
UK and the EU, seems to be to support
development, keep an open mind, monitor
and “wait and see”. It would be wrong
to perceive this as regulators taking a
passive approach. Rather, it might be
interpreted as a stance taken to learn,
without hindering the development of
a socially and economically beneficial
process or product.
The UK regulator’s “regulatory sandbox”, a
part of Project Innovate, provides a good
example of the pro-active approach. The
regulatory sandbox was established to
create a space in which start-up developers
and incumbents can test innovative
products, services, business models and
delivery mechanisms in a live environment
while ensuring that consumers are
appropriately protected.
Of the firms currently using the sandbox to
test their models, nine involve the use of
DLT. These projects serve a broad range of
financial services: from cross border money
transfers to a payments platform allowing
the Department of Work and Pensions to
credit value to a mobile device; to streamlining
the Initial Public Offering distribution
process; and providing a system for automated
customer authentication.
This latter use of DLT is one which is being
observed with some cautious enthusiasm
by regulators and industry bodies and the
FCA sees it having the potential to offer innovative
solutions to financial crime issues
and as presenting real opportunities for the
regulated sector to meet Know Your Customer
and Anti-Money Laundering requirements
more effectively. In turn, the technology
does give rise to its own connected
issues. One of the questions identified by
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EUROPE TECHNOLOGY
regulators, for example, is how do individuals
gain access to a distributed network and
who controls this process.
A different use was recently tested by the
Bank of England who undertook a Proof of
Concept (POC) to explore DLT’s application
to the transfer of ownership of a fictional
asset among several participants, including
a central authority which could establish
the supply of the asset and permission to
access and use the ledger.
Several areas emerged as meriting further
exploration by the Bank. These included:
• Scalability. The need for assurance
that a system could operate with total
data integrity and reliability at high
speeds and high volumes.
• Security. The search for certainty that
the privacy of the data in the distributed
ledgers would not be vulnerable to
cyberattack both now and in the future.
• Privacy. For DLT to be used in any
central bank application, a high standard
of privacy and resilience would
be required.
• Interoperability. Develop an understanding
of how existing data
processes and infrastructure might
interact with distributed ledgers.
• Sustainability. The Bank asserts that
DLT systems typically use more energy
and require more data storage than traditional
ledgers. Consideration of how
these can be minimised as systems
increase in scale, will be important.
Any design of the technology and processes
of regulation will have to take into account
these factors.
The likely impact of regulation will be focused
on systems, processes and controls
rather than adding new regulated activities
to the existing broad range of products and
services which fall within the regulated ambit
(leaving aside the question of cryptocurrencies).
The focus will be on how regulated
firms, using the technology, address the
sorts of issues highlighted by the Bank
of England above and how the regulators
supervise those firms.
Of course financial institutions are already
governed and supervised by legal and regulatory
codes and prudential requirements.
Strict rules 2 require regulated firms to establish,
implement and maintain robust policies
and procedures sufficient to counter the risk
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EUROPE TECHNOLOGY
that the firm might be used to further financial
crime. Where it is proportionate, taking
account of the complexity of its business
model, a firm must set out and maintain
an audit plan to examine and evaluate the
adequacy and effectiveness of its systems,
internal control mechanisms and arrangements.
For firms using DLT, extra focus
will be directed at how these systems and
controls are applied to the technology.
Prudential rules ensure that a firm’s capital
resources are assessed in relation to all the
activities of the firm and, amongst other
things, the risk of loss resulting from inadequate
or failed internal processes, people
and systems.
We think the regulator’s expectations will
be high.
Further interesting discussion arises from
the distinction between, on the one hand,
legal and regulatory codes which consist of
legal obligations and, on the other, technical
code governing software and protocols
upon which distributed ledgers rely. This
146 | Issue 6
distinction was highlighted recently in a
report by the UK Government Chief Scientific
Adviser 3 .
The fundamental difference between
regulatory code and technical code is that
regulatory code comes from outside the
DLT physical environment and is “extrinsic”
and, by contrast, technical code is “intrinsic”.
Regulatory rules can be broken but regulatory
consequences and penalties may follow.
If the rules of a technical code are broken, an
error is returned and no activity occurs. The
technical code means that the software is
self-regulating, through the operation of the
code itself, through rigid compliance with
the rules even where that compliance might
lead to undesirable outcomes.
Overcoming this form of technical rigidity,
which from some perspectives is perhaps at
the heart of the benefits of DLT, may give rise
to the biggest of the regulators’ challenges:
recognising the strength and weaknesses
of both technical code and regulatory code
and how the two interact. DLT providers will
need to design accordingly.
Penny Sanders
Head of Financial Services Regulation
Gowling WLG
Source:
1
2
3
Speech for ESMA 22 November 2016. Esma/2016/1613
FCA Handbook at SYSC.
Distributed Ledger Technology: beyond block chain.
Legal01#60456031v1[PAS2]

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