Country & Regional Focus
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Facing the Challenge of Change in Asia

An Interview with Alex Manson, Group Head, Transaction Banking, Standard Chartered Bank

In this interview, Alex Manson, Group Head, Transaction Banking, Standard Chartered Bank talks to Helen Sanders, Editor, about some of the issues in which treasurers in Asia are engaged, and the ways in which the bank is positioning its organisation and activities to support changing client needs. 

What do you see as some of the key challenges and opportunities in Asia for treasurers and their bankers today?

The profiles of our corporate clients, and therefore their banking needs, are changing fast, particularly in the emerging markets of Asia, Africa and the Middle East. As a trusted partner bank, we need to anticipate and respond to these needs by taking a cross-border, multi-product approach to cash and liquidity management, providing the solutions they need today with the flexibility to meet their evolving requirements. Cash investment, for example, was relatively straightforward in the past. Today, treasury centres in Asia Pacific are holding unprecedented levels of cash, resulting from both large-scale cash generation and retained earnings, often in highly-regulated countries. This creates significant challenges for treasurers, who in turn look to us for support.

At the same time, corporations continue to extend and deepen their supply chains across Asia. While international trade was traditionally the process of producing goods in one market and selling in another, goods are now produced in multiple places, assembled in others, and sold into many more. As the value chain extends and becomes increasingly complex, trade finance and working capital solutions will continue to play an important role in facilitating, and managing risk in international trade.