Standard Chartered Bank Malaysia appears well on its way in gearing up for a pole position as the international bank of choice among discerning customers.

In no uncertain terms, Standard Chartered Bank Malaysia Berhad has set its sights high on being the best international bank in the country. Its country head for consumer banking Malaysia, Tiew Siew Chuen, hopes to achieve this goal, elaborating on her strategies to take consumer banking to the next level.

Says Tiew: “We should be best in terms of products, employees, profitability to shareholders, best bank of choice and branding. I’ve shared this ambition with the team and we will build strategies around that.

“Firstly, it is important to have clear strategies to achieve our goals. There are three pillars of our strategy, with the first being our participation model and strategy for Malaysia. For instance, we are looking at how the bank can fulfill the varied needs of our customers and focus on certain products for particular segments to target a specific group of customers.”

The second pillar, she adds, is the need to go back to the basics of banking. Indeed, Tiew believes that liquidity is important and that the bank is well-capitalised at all times. Standard Chartered Malaysia’s capital adequacy ratio is about 14%, which is strong. Other areas of importance are whether the bank has the right platforms, the appropriate service turnaround, the right risk management framework and the investment enhancements that are required to propel it further.

The third pillar is the customer-centric model. Tiew contends that the bank was too product-focused in the past. For example, it may have over-focused on certain products but it currently plans to change some of its processes to be more customer-centric and better understand customers from a needs basis.

“We don’t want to just ask the customer; do you need a credit card? We don’t want to be product-focused but customer-driven and be able to better assess their needs. Our processes and systems need to be aligned so that we can support a customer-centric model. We will look at how to run our business from a customer segment profitability basis,” she explains.

Fresh Perspective
Tiew intends to bring fresh leadership to the consumer banking arm, having been with the bank for over 17 years. Her track record in consumer banking is impressive and she hopes that her experience will help bring the bank to its next level of success.

She aims to examine the strategies needed for Malaysia’s future direction. With an in-depth understanding of the competitive landscape and regulatory framework, she will look at how to bring the team forward.

Consumer banking is broadly about the products, systems and specialised areas, says Tiew, describing the need for all these areas to work in synergy, much like an orchestra. In addition, it is vital to continuously develop people and bring them up to their maximum potential.

Aside from this, there is a need to focus less on products and more on the individual needs of a customer. Looking at its priority banking, Tiew points out that there is a need to ascertain the customers’ needs. Some customers require a differentiated service or a level of service that is very high and need a response in a few minutes. As such, the bank invested in mobile phones that are routed to a central body and the customer service executive will come back to the customer almost immediately. This service was launched three months ago.

“We had a credit card re-launch within priority banking and are rewarding customers according to the total banking relationship. If the customer has taken out a mortgage then he will be rewarded based on that or if he has invested in unit trust funds then he will be rewarded accordingly. So, we have extended ourselves beyond a product focus to a more customer-centric relationship,” she adds.

Meanwhile, Tiew suggests that rather than hiring more and more people, it is more important to gain more quality and productivity among the existing staff. Nonetheless, as part of its expansion, the bank is actively hiring more frontliners and relationship managers for priority banking as well as branch personal financial consultants.

The bank will also strengthen its support system in credit and operations. In terms of branches, it plans to expand its network and recently re-located its Puchong branch to a larger facility and it is in the midst of renovating a branch, which will be ready next year.

“We want to ensure we have the right channels, numbers and quality of service to deliver on our ambition and satisfy customers,” Tiew says.

Emerging trends
An interesting trend these days is that a lot of customers do not visit branches and as such, the relationship managers visit the customers’ offices or homes in some cases. Today, 90% of a customer’s needs are met via the ATM and other automated machines as well as online.

In describing Standard Chartered Bank as an “all-weather” bank, Tiew explains that the bank can handle various circumstances such as an economic downturn or unfavourable market conditions such as interest rates or trade imbalances. It aims to be sustainable and resilient. This is why focusing on the right basics is important such as liquidity, capital adequacy and the need to work with the right people.

It is vital to have a strong team that consistently performs and the three pillars must be in sync to attain this. “We need to constantly assess what the gaps are and what areas need to be improved,” she says.

Looking at the small and medium enterprise (SME) industry, Tiew reckons that despite the economic downturn, these companies have come out strongly and participated in the government schemes and the Credit Guarantee Corporation (CGC).

“We launched the first women entrepreneurship scheme ever with CGC. In the last five to six months, we have undergone various initiatives and projects to make changes to the team, strategies and invested heavily in systems, processes and people. It was hard work for us but it has been rewarding and we are seeing good results in terms of business momentum, which has picked up well. We have seen positive results coming through this year especially in the second half of 2009,” she adds.

Having been in existence in Malaysia for more than 130 years, Standard Chartered Bank Malaysia has built a strong brand and reputation. Its risk management activities have protected it from economic downturns. Nonetheless, the bank would also like to be seen as being competitive and aggressive in terms of doing business.

“We have made some changes in our strategies in areas such as priority banking, mortgages and SMEs. Our competitors have started to notice Standard Chartered Bank Malaysia’s activities and this is a result of a deliberate change in some of our business strategies,” Tiew concludes.

The bank is clearly on the path to greater success. Next year and the years to come will be a litmus test period to see if the bank will reach even greater heights.