The Excellence in Retail Financial Services Awards

OUR EVALUATION CRITERIA

The following are our core “Belief Statements” for each of the awards in this category. Each Belief Statement can be broken down into its elements, which are in turn made up of the quantifiable data that we look for in our audit document and interviews.

These are then published in selecting the winners as a form of transparent assessment, that can also be used to discuss the basis from which we arrive at our conclusion. These insights are also used to benchmark players and discover GAP analysis in future assessments.

BEST RETAIL FINANCE PLAYER (BY COUNTRY)

THE SCORECARD

All our scorecards are based on the belief statement that encapsulates all the dimensions required to run this programme well. This belief statement is then broken down into components and then set out by identifying quantifiable data that we can use as proxy to evaluate your institution's achievements.

The questions that we ask in the subsequent pages related to the completion of the scorecard will also give us a good overview of your retail finance business at the micro-level in your country, at the market level between your competitors and at the street level inside your organisations.

"The Excellence Scorecard is used to evaluate financial institutions for both country and regional basis for the Excellence in Retail Financial Services Programme. It is the backbone of the evaluation process and was developed with an eye on one of the key objectives of the programme, which is to create an instrument that is accepted by the player in the retail financial services industry as a viable, objective and representative measure of an institution's performance across multiple areas."

In our assessment of best retail, the following are the factors that we look at and the percentage we give to each of them.

Definition: Please exclude the SME banking and the private banking business in the key performance indicators

Note: Please refer to the subsequent sections (excel tabs) for the questions we are asking to help us in quantifying each of the areas covered.

Dimension		Weight	Indicator
Consistent Financial Performance:	We want to see sustainable growth, profitability but not at the expense of good management of costs	15%	Growth in gross retail revenue (CAGR 3 years) ROE (ROA/CAR) ROE in last three years CIR (%) ∆ CIR and NIM in last three years Retail income/profit contribution in last three years Customer, market share and fee income growth last three year
Corporate Strategy:	We want to see the ability to articulate a strategy to which we are able to connect the quantifiable performance figures to a long term and achievable story	15%	Business overview Key drivers of growth Reason why you deserve to win
Digital Journey	We will assess where your institution is in the digital journey	15%	% of base is digitally active # of ecosystems built % digitally on-boarded
Brand	We want to assess the brand promise that your institution enjoys in your marketplace.	10%	Size of retail deposits ($) Growth in retail deposits (CAGR 3 years)
Sales Capability	We want to see how large, powerful and organised your sales capability is	10%	Digital sales (%) Fee/ total retail income Retail operating profit/FTE
Customer Experience	We want to know if your customers love you more than your competitor through their experiences of basic services	10%	Net promoter score Bankquality.com Apple and Android score of mobile app
Process and Technology	We want to know that your technology infrastructure is keeping up with the times by your ability to respond to competition quickly	10%	Accountability of digital into group finance # and average age of retail host systems % of open systems are in cloud % of processes automated and digitised
Risk Management	The ability to take on risks and price them in a managed manner.	5%	NPL Incidences of operational risk
People and Organisation	We want to know if you have a mixture of incumbent and new blood in the organisation and the ability to mobilise your employees to support a programme	5%	Number of new staff as a % of total Digital employee profile
Achievement in Year under Review	State to us the achievements in your retail business in the year under review that has not been captured in the static data above	5%	Uniqueness of initiative # of new initiatives launched
Source: The Asian Banker

BEST DIGITAL FINANCE INSTITUTION

"We believe that the best digital finance institution and/or the best digital bank has demonstrated exceptional effort and mastery in the industry by going beyond digitising products, and services, while also transforming the entire franchise through focus on organisational agility and simplification, brand equity, and overall consumer experience."

In our assessment of the best digital bank and best digital financial institution, the following are the dimensions that we look at, the indicators that define those dimensions, and the percentage we give to each of these dimensions.

Evaluation Scorecard for "The Best Digital Bank and Financial Institution"

Dimension	Weight	Indicator
Strategy and Leadership: We want to see the ability to articulate a transformative digital strategy to which we are able to connect the quantifiable performance figures to a long term and achievable story	20%	Business overview Key drivers of growth Type of banking license Range of asset and deposit products
Financial Performance: We want to see the progress you made in your digital journey	20%	If this institution has turned profitable Revenue growth ∆ ROE in last three years CIR (%) ∆ CIR and NIM in last three years Retail income/profit contribution in last three years Customer, market share and fee income growth last three year
Customer: We want to see how fast you were able to scale up your user base	20%	Size of user base Active rates Average number of digital customers onboarded per month
Brand: We want to know whether your customers value you more than your competitors	10%	App score in Google Play and Apple Store BankQuality.com score Deposits collected
Ecosystem We want to see whether you can collaborate well with other ecosystem players	10%	Functioning ecosystem the FI has created or is plugged into Partnerships and alliances API usage
Big Data: We want to see the big data capabilities and how this gives you a competitive edge in today's market place	10%	Data coverage Data center efficiency Big data use cases launched (#)
Process and Technology: We want to know that your technology infrastructure has the ability to respond to competition quickly	10%	Platform independence Robotic process automation Migration to cloud % of processes automated and digitised

Note: (1) Data Analytics, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) Source: The Asian Banker

BEST SME BANK

The questions that we ask in the subsequent pages related to the completion of the scorecard will give us a good overview of your wealth management business in your country, at the market level between your competitors and at the street level inside your organisation.

The Excellence Scorecards for each award category are used to evaluate banks on both a country and a regional basis for the Excellence in Retail Financial Services Programme. It is the backbone of the evaluation process and was developed with an eye on one of the key objectives of the programme, which is to create an instrument that is accepted by the player in the retail financial services industry as a viable, objective and representative measure of a bank's performance across multiple areas.

In our assessment for the Best SME Bank, the following is the balanced scorecard, the dimensions that we look at, the indicators that define those dimensions and the weightage we give to each of these dimensions.

Dimension	Weightage	Indicator
Organisation We want to know whether a coherent strategy can be formulated.	20%	SME size and architecture Business overview Key drivers of growth Reason why you deserve to win
Customer We want to know if your customers value you more than your competitor through their experiences of basic services.	20%	SME accounts Customer satisfaction Digital segment Market share
Financial Performance We want to see whether the ability to articulate a coherent strategy can be connected to quantifiable performance figures to a long term and achievable story.	20%	Market share ROA Revenue growth ∆ ROE in last three years CIR (%) ∆ CIR and NIM in last three years SME income/profit contribution in last three years Customer, market share and fee income growth last three years
Risk The ability to take on risks and price them in a managed manner.	10%	Loan impairment (NPL) Delinquency rate (%)
Technology and Operations We want to know that your technology infrastructure is keeping up with the times.	10%	Turnaround time (account) in hours Cheque imaging technology Digital account onboarding (%) % of processes automated and digitised
Achievements State one key achievement in your retail business in the year under review that has not been captured in the above dimensions.	20%	Innovation initiatives Funding innovation Payments innovation Cash management innovation

Source: The Asian Banker

Best Wealth Management Bank

We believe that wealth management is defined by the total size and type of assets under management, the ability to convert strong relationship management capabilities to sell proprietary and third party products and services, and the ability to capture a sizeable wallet-share of the affluent customer with investible assets between $100-$1 million depending on markets and supported by a well-branded service and technological capability to execute.

Wealth management is defined as business from the affluent segment. It does not include private banking and the emerging affluent segment.

In our assessment for the Best SME Bank, the following are the dimensions that we look at, the indicators that define those dimensions, and the percentage we give to each of these dimensions.

THE SCORECARD

Please refer to the subsequent sections for the questions we are asking to help us in quantifying each of the areas covered.

Dimension	Weightage	Indicator
Business Strategy	20%	Summary of business performance Contributing factors to business performance Reason why your institution should win this award
Asset under Management	15%	Size in AUM (including deposits) Growth of AUM Market share in AUM in the country (incl. deposits)
Financial Performance	20%	ROE Cost to income ratio ∆ CIR and NIM in last three years Income/profit contribution in last three years Customer, market share and fee income growth last three years
Customer	15%	Net gain in new affluent accounts in year under review Average AUM per client
Advisory and Data Support	20%	RM to client servicing ratio Net promoter score BankQuality Big data and AI applications % of processes automated and digitised
Sales Management	10%	Revenue contribution RM productivity Digital sales # of product categories

Source: The Asian Banker

AWARDS AND BELIEF STATEMENTS

Submit a separate response file for each awards category.
The Asian Banker and the international panel of advisors look out for innovations that work. We look for initiatives, appliations or programmes that have significantly contributed to the transformation of the industry and have added value in serving the customers as well as improving the institution’s performance. In doing so, we look at the degree of innovation, the quality of strategy and execution as well as actionable results.

Retail Finance Product Awards

Best Asset/Fund Management Product
We believe that successful asset management is defined by the delivery of healthy investment returns, personalised to customer needs, allowing for the transparency of investment activity and product information.

Best Automobile/Car Loan Product
We believe that leaders in the automobile finance business are defined by their distribution model, be it direct or agency driven, and the capability to acquire customers through market leading turnaround time and quality service, and whose assets demonstrate strong risk management over several market cycles.

Best Beyond Banking Service
We believe that customer centric retail finance institutions are motivated to create relevant and impactful customer experience around lifestyle, family, business and other need above and beyond financial services that deepen long term engagement.
Best Consumer Credit Product
We believe that consumer finance is a highly effective entry-level customer acquisition platform of retail customers as well as merchant partners to facilitate purchase and consumption of products and services. It is successful when a percentage of customers bring on board their re-current and long-term revolving credit, deposits and consumer finance relationship with low delinquency costs.

Best Credit Card Product
We believe that credit cards are highly effective customer acquisition platforms that must demonstrate the ability to convert its base into sticky and active users with low delinquency, supported by a robust analytics-based marketing and loyalty programme.

Best Cross-border Remittance Product
We believe that remittance services require the execution of large volumes of instantaneous global transfers for low value transactions at the lowest possible per transaction cost that is passed on as a value proposition to the largest number of customers possible.

Best Deposit/Savings Product
We believe that the deposits business is a demonstration of an insitution's strength in terms of franchise and retail distribution channels, as well as its proximity to customers and their ability to effectivelly sell a wide range of new and existing products in the local marketplace.

Best Digital Wallet/Mobile Money Product
We believe that a digital wallet should allow customers to top up, receive, transfer funds and make digital payment transactions from the widest range of choices that is ubiquitous, seamless, instant and secure, 24 X 7, peer-to-peer, and interoperates between different systems.

Best Financial Asset/Market Trading Service
We believe that a successful financial asset/market trading product facilitates the efficient processing of investor transactions, providing price transparency and cheaper trade execution. Market access and connectivity is enabled through use of streamlined trading functionality, advanced technology and robust risk-management processes.

Best Financial Planning Service
We believe that an effective financial planning service is designed to aggregate the total financial assets and liabilities of the customer from different accounts and institutions to facilitate an accurate and comprehensive view and enable timely decision for savings, borrowing, investing and protection needs without pushing of specific products and/or institutions to meet the need.

Best Financial/ Investment Trust Product
We believe that a successful financial and investment trust product must enable the clear segregation and protection of financial assets for the beneficiares, meet the investment growth and yield of the settlor, with regular reporting of performance and offering access to a diversified range of investments, with a clear and transparent fee structure.

Best Foreign Exchange Servicet
We believe that a foreign exchange sefvice must offer market competitive and transparent rates, ease of access and use, seamless transaction and enabled through self service automated channels and integrated with underlying transactions.

Best Home Loan/Mortgage Product
We believe that a strong mortgage business is denoted by market share, volume and number of customers, ability to maintain spreads over economic cycles, strong customer equity portfolio and low delinquencies, supported by strong origination and customer support capabilities to achieve a profitable portfolio.

Best Investment Advisory Service
We believe that an investment advisor holds a position of trust and assumes the fiduciary duty to serve the investor based on a thorough understanding of investment objectives, risk profiles, markets and assets, and to recommend a portfolio of diversified investment asset allocation to meet these goals and risk appetites without any encumberances to any product or institutions, with a transparent fee structure.

Best Life Insurance Product
We believe that a successful life insurance product provides flexible and personalized insurance coverage that utilises technology and big data to tailor risk assessments and premiums, to achieve efficient on-boarding and to improve customer engagement.

Best Merchant Service
We believe that successful payments merchant services enable the real-time and secure completion of low or high value transactions, supporting the end-to-end supply chain, with straight-through processing, utilizing multiple channels or devices at the lowest possible cost per transaction and minimum error rates, in a regulatory compliant manner.

Best Microfinance Product
We believe that a successful microfinancing business is one that demonstrates the ability to reach out to commercially driven, marginalised customer segments with a variety of micro loan and payment products, distributed through an impressive network reach and supported by strong risk management, collection practices and excellent locally trained staff.

Best Non-Life/General Insurance Product
We believe that a successful non-life insurance product provides flexible and personalized insurance coverage that utilises technology and big data to tailor risk assessments and premiums, to achieve efficient on-boarding and to improve customer engagement.

Best Payment/Funds Transfer Product
We believe that the best payment and funds transfer product offers the widest choice of channels to receive, transfer and make payment transactions that is ubiquitous, seamless, instant and secure, 24 X 7, leverage different methods and rails, and interoperates between different systems.

Best Pension/Retirment Income Product
We believe that a successful pension product enables customers to easily access their pension payments and transactions, as well as to provide personalised advice and information on the scheme structure. Through digitalisation and data analytics, it should deliver a more customised offering, specific to customer needs, balancing the rate of return with low risk.

Best Personal Loan Product
We believe that credit cards are highly effective customer acquisition platforms that must demonstrate the ability to convert its base into sticky and active users with low delinquency, supported by a robust analytics-based marketing and loyalty programme.

Best SME Loan/Financing Product
We believe that the best SME loan and financing facility should be accessible and leverage a wide range of data sources to model and determine the credit profile of the SME borrowers, secured against cashflow from trade receivables, to ensure a short processing time, offer risk based pricing, deliver low delinquecy and ensure sustainability and profitability of the overall portfolio,

Best Savings Account Product
We believe that a digital lending product incorporates innovative models in enhancing loan origination and decisioning, risk profile assessment, sourcing capital, while also providing a seamless experience to customers across a wide range of income segments.

Best Cross-border Remittance Product
We believe that remittance services require the execution of large volumes of instantaneous global transfers for low value transactions at the lowest possible per transaction cost that is passed on as a value proposition to the largest number of customers possible.

Best Digital Loan Product
We believe that a digital lending product incorporates innovative models in enhancing loan origination and decisioning, risk profile assessment, sourcing capital, while also providing a seamless experience to customers across a wide range of income segments.

Best Savings Account Product
We believe that the deposits business is a demonstration of an insitution's strength in terms of franchise and retail distribution channels, as well as its proximity to customers and their ability to effectivelly sell a wide range of new and existing products in the local marketplace.

RETAIL FINANCE DIGITAL AWARDS

Best Big Data/AI/ML Initiative/Application
We believe that the application of data and analytics or AI must demonstrate the ability to convert actionable information, gained from collecting, processing and analysing large data sets into, real business drivers, making an impact on the banks top and line growth.

Best Blockchain/DLT Initiative/Application
We believe that the best blockchain initiative, application or programme launched innovative use cases allowing network participants to connect directly and form online networks, removing the need for middlemen.

Best Branch Innovation Inkitiative/Application
We believe that the best branch innovation projects are designed to maximising the scope of an institution's footprint to serve the transactional, advisory and product needs of the largest numbers of visitors in the most cost efficient manner, using both human and automated devices consistent with their brands.

Best Chatbot/Voice Banking Initiative Application
We believe that successful chatbot or voice banking services are not only able to interact with customers via multi lingual text and voice interfaces but offer highly relevant cost efficient proprietary services to its customers on top of a generic AI engine.

Best Customer Loyalty/Reward Initiative
We believe that the best customer loyalty programme achieves a strong bonding with customers and creates strong relationships driven by customer centric earning and rewarding mechanisms.

Best Cyber Security Implementation
We believe that the best customer loyalty programme achieves a strong bonding with customers and creates strong relationships driven by customer centric earning and rewarding mechanisms.

Best CyberSecurity Initiative/Application
We believe a successful cyber security initiative must continuously address the evolving risks by demonstrating, on an enterprise level, the ability to identify and prevent instances of cyber frauds, thefts and intrusions to the bank’s network or systems while ensuring smooth and safe operations of the institutions.

Best Digital Account Opening/Customer On-boarding Initiative/Application
The Asian Banker assesses the institution’s efforts to create a strong digital brand identity to build consumer mind share, persuade and realistically demonstrate the brand’s relevance to a customer’s digital lifestyle

Best Digital Deposit Service
We believe that the best digital account aims to automate and optimise client onboarding for a savings or current account, documentation, and Know Your Client (KYC) processes by harnessing technologies such as program synthesis, natural language processing (NLP), optical character recognition (OCR) and machine learning (ML) capabilities

Best Digital Brand Campaign
We believe that the best digital brand campaign reflects institution’s efforts to create a strong digital brand identity to build consumer mind share, persuade and realistically demonstrate the brand’s relevance to a customer’s digital lifestyle

Best Digtal Business Model
We believe that successful business model is one that demonstrates sustainable revenue enhancement and diversification strategies. In doing so, it recognises innovative programmes to serve new or underserved customer segments utilising new or re-engineered products delivered through new or re-engineered delivery channels.

Best Digital Customer Ecosystem Initiative/Application
We believe that to provide customer-centric products and services, financial institutions would need to embed their offerings into the lifestyle of their customers, and would need to collaborate with other value providers as part of an overall ecosystem.

Best Digital Deposit Service
We believe the best digital deposit service creates timely, relevant and needs based customer deposit solutions, which result in positive customer digital experiences, enhanced customer loyalty and increased profits.

Best Digital Employee Engagement
We believe that a well-run insitution builds inclusive workplace environments where flexibility, diversity and value-based behaviour is celebrated and rewarded to create a highly engaged digital savy and digitally trained workforce. The areas of assessment are: employee development, employee engagement (internal), performance/reward structure and employee involvement (external).

Best Digital Lending Service
We believe the best digital lending service creates timely, relevant and needs based customer lending solutions, which result in positive customer digital experiences, enhanced customer loyalty and increased profits.

Best Digital Robo-Advisory Service
We believe the best digital robo-advisory platform offers simplified account setup processes, comprehensive goal planning, customised portfolio management, robust security features and a personalised customer service tailored to meet the needs of the investor.

Best Digital Self-Service Initiative/Application
We believe the best digital self-service initiative offers easy access, anywhere, anytine, for customers to perform fast and secure transactions without the need for external intervention.

Best Digital/Mobile Banking Service
We believe the best mobile application offers a wide range of relevant functionalities and finanancial and non financial features to acquire a maximum number of active users while ensuring high-level security and outstanding user experience.

Best Financial Inclusion Initiative/Application
We believe that a financial inclusion initiative brings in more consumers into the financial system by providing alternative and innovative solutions to underserved segments in which credit and financial products are limited.

Best Integrated E-Commerce and Finance Initiative/Application
We believe the best e-commerce platforms are able to successfully connect digital marketplaces with value added lending and payments services in the most seamless and accessible way.

Best IoT Initiative/Application
We believe the best IoT implementation creates elevated client engagement by meshing IoT with other emerging technologies to create powerful value propositions for new and existing clients, autonomous agents and market places.

Best Open Banking/API Initiative/Application
We believe that open application programming interfaces (APIs) are able to create powerful synergies between an institution's products and service propositions and its customers, exposing data and services externally and internally, to partners and mobile devices. Complete API management platforms are also able to maximise business value and deliver APIs that developers and business owners will support.

Best Regtech/Compliance/Reporting Initiative/Application
The best regtech initiative effectively identifies, owns, manages and mitigates ethics and compliance risk in critical areas such as sales and marketing, finance and accounting, risk management, IT and data privacy through regulatory technology

Best Social Media Engagement Initiative/Application
We believe that a successful social media campaign engages in new ways of communication and the distribution of financial services and products to create not only trust, responsiveness and loyalty among new and existing customers but better leads generation and conversion.

Retail Finance Frictionless Awards

Best Frictionless Credit Evaluation Initiative/Application
The best credit evaluation initiative, appliation or programme successfully applies new scoring models with a wide range of transactional, behavioural and alternative criteria processed in a highly automated manner to reach out to more customers previously inaccessible.

Best Frictionless Customer Experience Initiative/Application
We believe that excellent customer service experience is designed around the customer's lifestyle and preferences, and should seek to utilise a combination of people, process and technology to reduce all possible friction.

Best Frictionless Customer Relationship Management Initiative/Application
We believe that a well-run customer relationship management includes customer loyalty, customer advocacy and retention initiatives, sales processes as well as all initiatives around customer relationship management at the front, middle and back office.

Best Frictionless Omni Channel Integration Initiative/Application
A sucessful omni channel integration is one that demonstrates efforts to integrate a diverse mix of network points to deliver services and products in the most consistent and unified manner possible, driven by business Intelligence, real-time data management, CRM, cross-channel implementation and channel cooperation as well as integrated contact management.

Best Frictionless Sales Management Initiative/Application
We believe that an efficient sales management platform integrates and automates the sales and customer contact process from both inbound and outbound channels, that leverage real-time customer insight, behaviour modelling and machine learning to identify and ensure successful customer customer engagement and conversion and enhance the productivity of sales personnel.

Best Productivity, Efficiency and Automation Initiative/Application
We believe that a successful productivity, efficiency and automation initiative, application or programme enhances the institutions processes and optimises operations which allows the institution to better serve the consumers at faster and less costly manner.