Asian Regional Awards of Excellence

Citi and UBS, last year’s best bank and best investment bank in Asia respectively, are both among the institutions whose reputations and revenues were most battered in the past 12 months. The field seemed wide open for Asia’s regional players – and the banks less blasted by the misfortunes about which so much has been written – to step up. Standard Chartered, long considered boring for its focus on core banking businesses, is now feted as having weathered the crisis better than almost any other institution. It has spent the past 12 months becoming the region’s top underwriter of syndicated loans, making acquisitions such as that of broker Cazenove Asia to expand its capabilities, and growing its wholesale business in almost every market in which it operates. HSBC too has grown, becoming a consistent powerhouse in the region’s debt markets and benefiting from the renewed importance of flow businesses such as cash management and foreign exchange.