The International Excellence in Retail Financial Services programme is probably the most rigorous, prestigious and transparent awards programme for consumer financial services in the world. At the moment it covers all of the Asia Pacific, home to some of the largest and most competitive retail financial services countries in the world. We also cover the Middle East and West Africa. The programme is being extended to Central Asia, South Africa, the CIS, the Balkans and other areas where retail financial services are important progressively. We already evaluate of more than 300 banks and non-bank retail financial services players in more than 42 countries in a thorough evaluation process every year.
The programme also assesses all new players such as payments companies, marketplace platforms and alternative financial services platforms made possible by financial technology (fintech) who are greatly contributing to the transformation of the retail financial services industry. Through this, we aim to capture the evolving competitive landscape and recognise the outstanding players and initiatives, from which the industry can learn from to better provide consumer products, services and experience.
Since it started in 2002, the programme has been built on the premise that an outstanding institution in consumer finance demonstrates a long-term sustainable franchise, based on strong business processes that lead to a consistent and profitable performance. It recognises financial institutions for their vision, execution and market leading propositions that make a real impact to their business and the local consumers in an ever transforming industry.
In 2015, we took on an audit-based approach in the evaluation process. This involves submissions for evaluation to be completed in a comprehensive data sheet where your basic quantitative figures will be collated and compared with your peers in the industry over multiple years. We also take into account consumers perception surveys.
The Asian Banker maintains a comprehensive library of data of all retail financial services institutions in “The Retail Finance Working Group” retailfinance.theasianbanker.com. It contains the profiles of many of the retail financial services institutions we cover, including data, trends, case studies and interviews. It also incorporates templates and assertions that are rigorously tested and used to benchmark the industry worldwide. “The Retail Finance Working Group” is available by subscription. For these reasons, we are able to focus on the changes in the yearly review very quickly without losing sight of the detailed profiles that define each player.
We have developed a methodology to track and rate financial institutions on their journey to become highly competitive digital players. From 2018, we have added an assessment of how prepared a player is to compete in the digital world. Where you are in that journey contributes to our assessment of your organisation as a winning player in the industry today. We are willing to share our findings with institutions that are interested to know where they stand and the GAPS with best practice institutions through our “Mapping Your Digital Journey” consulting services.
We benchmark your performance globally. We look at global best practices, no matter where they come from. We truly believe that best practice comes from any part of the world, and we are not caught by any Western bias. We recognise achievements as they occur in any part of the world and contextualise them for what the players achieve in their specific marketplace but explained in a global context. We also assess players who do not participate in our programmes to ensure that the winners selected have been assessed against all their potential peers and competitors.
With effect from 2018, all our annual rankings are displayed for both the players and their customers to use as a reference for their own decision making needs. The rankings also display the points scored for each of the criterial in our transparent scorecards. Our rankings are open for consumer and industry comments and feedback. We also publish best practice and case studies of operational excellence.
The Asian Banker is committed to the highest level of integrity in the conduct of all its awards programmes and are committed to the following principles: