Tuesday, 19 March 2024

Where leaders from around the world decide the future of Asia's financial services industry

The Asian Banker Summit stands as the region's most prominent annual gathering of global thought leaders and senior industry practitioners. As the foremost forum for engaging on global themes, it brings together leading minds and industry specialists, facilitating meaningful discussions and insights into the evolving landscape of finance.

The Asian Banker Summit is several conferences in one. The Summit comprises of several complementary dialogues that reflect the complexity of today's industry dynamics. These include:

1. The Keynote and Thought Leadership Dialogues

A political or industry leader in the host country delivers the Opening Keynote. It is an opportunity to showcase achievements and explain policies to the international community. The Thought Leadership Dialogues features global leaders of interest to CEOs and senior-most executives. The Summit features seminal figures in the vein of past speakers such as Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web; Jimmy Wales, Co-founder of Wikipedia; Barney Frank, former Congressman and co-author of the Dodd-Frank Act; Dick Kovacevich, former chairman of Wells Fargo; Thomas M. Hoenig, vice chairman of the FDIC; Hans Eichel, co-founder G20 & former finance minister of Germany; Liu Mingkang, former chairman of China Banking Regulatory Commission; Al Gore, former vice president of the US and many other top officials and business leaders from all over the world.

2. Transaction Finance Reinvented Conference

The Transaction Finance Reinvented Conference at Future of Finance Summit brings together most senior executives in the financial institutions, correspondent banking and transaction banking businesses for incisive and practical conversations on critical issues affecting their fields today. The event discusses the dynamics of global trade and supply chain finance, correspondent banking, cross-border payments, foreign exchange (FX) and liquidity management, as the industry transforms to meet customer needs.

3. The Technology Decision Makers Conference

The Technology Decision Makers Conference is the most influential annual forum that brings together business and technology decision makers to benchmark technology choices and spending. Executives responsible for technology and innovation initiatives discuss their experiences in the selection, implementation and execution of technology and operations to enable the complex business processes of banks. There is a concurrent theme of responding to increased and onerous regulatory scrutiny.

4. Risk and Regulations Conference

The Risk and Regulation Conference brings together leaders from global banks and regulatory bodies worldwide. Amid transformative shifts in financial services, the conference offers a crucial platform for comprehending, monitoring, and mitigating challenges. It catalyses meaningful discussions, insights, and collaboration, guiding participants through the complexities of a fundamentally different era in financial services. Positioned at the forefront of industry discourse, this conference serves as your gateway to shaping the future of risk management and regulation.

5. Addressing issues that go beyond the responsibilities of any one organization

We bring the Summit to the world's foremost financial and commercial cities in Asia, providing the forum to discuss the economic themes that are pervasive in the global market. At a time when the world is undergoing profound change in the areas of regulation, impact of economic stimulus, the rise of the Asian economies, global trade imbalances and the growing influence of customers and technology. It is these very topics that will underline the discussions at the Summit ensuring that each topic answers a specific question that has direct bearing on the industry in Asia.

6. Bringing together leaders for over a decade

The Asian Banker Summit has brought together thought leaders since 1999. Over the last decade, The Summit has matured into one of the most sophisticated and incisive platforms for regional and global leaders to share their views on critical banking and regulatory issues. With a focus on the Asian financial services landscape, The Asian Banker Summit is the essential gathering for senior executives and CEOs as well as senior regulators and banking professionals from the industry. The discussions at the Summit always focus on current global themes that are re-shaping the competitive landscape of the industry.

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:

  1. We will never conduct ourselves or put ourselves in a manner that can give anyone in the industry any reasons to doubt the impartiality of the decision making process. The recommendations of our researchers and the final decisions of the Council of Advisors are made independently without fear or favour of any commercial arrangements or external factors that can affect their decision.
  2. If there are errors in the evaluation process, we are open to criticism and correction by all parties in an impartial manner.
  3. We make a clear distinction between the commercial aspects of running an awards programme which go towards underwriting the costs of the researchers and the time involved, and the neutrality with which our researchers make their decisions. The entire enquiry process in the awards programmes is thorough and non- discriminatory. With this approach, we have discovered best practices in institutions that we have never had any forms of interactions in the past. We then initiate an enquiry process to discover new winners who may not be aware of this programme. The process is run on a neutral basis, and we make no distinction between institutions with which we have a commercial relationship and those that we do not. We conduct our research to identify the best possible candidates for the respective awards in a rigorous manner.
  4. In the conduct of our research, we do not accept any forms of gratuity, including transport, food, or conveniences and allowances of any kind from any of the institutions that we make an enquiry on. We undertake our own cost in travelling and communicating with all the different players.
  5. The sales team in The Asian Banker has no influence in the selection process whatsoever. Although we have many instances where institutions make representation to the sales team ahead of the award process,there are strict "Chinese walls" with the research and editorial teams, where none of these information is communicated and least of all influence the decision making process.
  6. The sales team only becomes aware of the winners after the list is approved by the Council of Advisors and communicated to the winning institutions. The list is final and no amendments are made based on any commercial arrangements that arise thereafter.
  7. Winning institutions are encouraged by the sales team to participate in commercial activities, most of which goes to underwrite the costs involved in conducting the research. The evaluation process often takes between four to six months of time and work. During this period, none of the independent activities are paid for by any institutions whatsoever. We also do not accept sponsorships that can unduly influence the type of winners being selected.
  8. The commercial arrangements that winning institutions are invited to make with the sales team after the announcements are made are designed to add value to the winning institutions’ own marketing efforts as a result of winning the awards in a tasteful and relevant manner. They are also designed to create and sustain the community element that is required to bring the entire industry together, which in turn, adds to the prestige and recognition of these awards.
  9. We regret that we cannot allow the intellectual property and rights to promote the win to be used by institutions that do not support us commercially after winning an award. There are institutions that want to promote the fact that they had won an award from The Asian Banker who have not supported us in any way, and we believe that this is not fair to those who understand the process and do support us.
  10. We want the industry to take the awards presented by the Asian Banker as the most prestigious recognition of their work as well as professional careers.
  11. Any allegations of impropriety or lack of impartiality are taken seriously and brought to the attention of the Council of Advisors for their decision. If there is a need, we will publish allegations of our own impropriety with a view to clarify or correct our position, if the need arises. We stand to be corrected and welcome all feedback because of this position.
Upcoming Summit
Past Summits

The Future of Finance Summit 2023

14 - 15 June 2023 | Bangkok

The Future of Finance Summit 2020

16 - 18 May 2020 | Kuala Lumpur Malaysia

The Asian Banker Summit 2019

29 - 31 May 2019 | Bangkok Thailand

The Asian Banker Summit 2018

23 - 25 May 2018 | China

The Asian Banker Summit 2017

8 - 9 June 2017 | Singapore
Past Summit 2023
Past Summit 2019
Past Summit 2018

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The Asian Banker Summit gives you unprecedented opportunities to be a part of the financial value chain and differentiate yourself from the mainstream competition.