Companies Benefit from Lower Prices, Better Service

An influx of competitors into the Asian trade finance business begun to erode the dominant position of market leader HSBC and is pressuring margins throughout the industry. That’s good news for companies across Asia, which are benefitting from both the lower prices caused by increasingly fierce competition and increased quality of trade finance product and services.

About 43% of large Asian companies use HSBC for trade finance. Standard Chartered and Citi rank just behind HSBC among the region’s three traditional major trade finance banks, both with market penetration scores of 35–36%. Over the past 12 months, Deutsche Bank and ANZ Bank have experienced significant expansion of their client bases and now boast market penetration scores of 31% and 20%, respectively. These five banks are the 2013 Greenwich Share Leaders in Asian Large Corporate Trade Finance.

Also over the past year, Citi and ANZ Bank have made substantial improvements to the quality of their trade finance offerings. Citi in particular has made strides in integrating its cash management and trade finance platform towards a more holistic supply chain management solution, as well as using trade finance as an integral tool to helping companies manage their overall balance sheet. These banks join HSBC as the 2013 Greenwich Quality Leaders in Asian Large Corporate Trade Finance. Greenwich Quality Leaders are banks that receive quality ratings form their corporate clients that top those awarded to competitors by a statistically significant margin.