With over 680 million people, a relatively young population with an average age of 29 years, and a rising middle class, the Southeast Asian region is a dynamic market that offers endless opportunities for companies seeking growth. Taking advantage of the rising spending power and the burgeoning ranks of digital natives in the region, many new economy companies – from super app Grab to e-commerce sites like Lazada and Shopee – have flourished, using their technological edge and disruptive business models to gain market share.

For such an industry, speed is vital; financial processes have to be executed at a rapid pace. Banks play a key role in supporting these financial transactions, enabling CFOs and treasurers to reach their corporate treasury goals. For many unicorns in the region, which have achieved impressive growth in a short span of time, the problem is how to cope with the onrush of business. Their finance departments often encounter bandwidth issues – from having to spend countless hours matching invoices to logging into various banking portals for account balance updates.

As part of the Triple A Treasury, Trade, SSC and Risk Management Awards 2022 programme, the The Asset’s board of editors actively engaged with market stakeholders in the region, listening and comprehending how they were able to support growth and, more importantly, improve the customer experience of users of their respective platforms.

In Malaysia, several new economy companies that spoke with The Asset were pleased with how their banking service provider was able to deploy a combination of DuitNow QR codes and APIs ( application programming interfaces ) to facilitate data reconciliation and help process transactions in a timely manner. While important for the finance teams, these types of arrangements ultimately aim to improve the end-user experience, as there is now certainty and transparency around transactions being executed as well as reduction of errors.

Other solutions aimed at supporting the growth of these companies include omnichannel-type collections where an on-demand logistics platform, for instance, can now receive collections from multiple channels such as national payment infrastructures and e-wallets, instead of heavily relying on physical cash.

Though a number of banks are slowly pivoting their business strategy to cater to the needs of new economy companies, they are also aware of the opportunity of future-proofing traditional businesses aiming to expand in the region.

Companies ranging from broker dealers to property management companies and international trading companies, have looked to their panel banks to provide bespoke and impactful solutions to improve day-to-day financial processes.

Some examples shared with The Asset team over the review period include schemes to shift trade finance processes online for some traders using blockchain-backed systems such as Contour to validate transactions. In the broker-dealer space, several solutions showcased how banks were able to customize their systems to integrate with a client’s propriety system to make it easier to top up investment portfolios.

It was a similar case in the Australian market, where banks were being tested to provide customized solutions for their customers. An Australian-based client commentary picked up by The Asset team this year detailed that the best transaction banks were ones that were transparent about the limits of their capabilities but yet made efforts to ensure that the implementation of the solution went well. 

In new economy companies as well as traditional businesses, the focus for treasurers and CFOs has always been future-proofing their financial operations to meet the ever-growing list of uncertainties facing the world today. This will be key in reshaping the corporate treasury function to one that adds strategic value to a company rather than being a cost burden.  

For the complete list of Australia/Asean winners, please click here.

To learn more about these awards, please click here.

To join the in-person annual celebratory dinner on the 6th of July 2022 at the Four Seasons Singapore, please contact us at celebrate@theasset.com.

Stay tuned in the coming days and weeks as more announcements are on the horizon as part of The Asset Triple A Treasury, Trade, SSC and Risk Management Awards 2022.