Awards for Excellence 2020
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Standard Bank’s investment in switching its trade processes from manual to digital has paid off this year, with faster processes stemming from better technology. It is the best bank for transaction services in Africa as a result. Its head of transactional products and services is Hasan Khan.
The bank has adopted four new technologies to streamline and simplify trade deals. In South Africa, it has introduced a financial distress early warning system, which uses data analytics to determine if a client could go into credit distress over a three- to six-month period.
To reduce document checking time from days to minutes, Standard Bank signed a partnership with Traydstream, a fintech that streamlines document checking and improves sanctions checking using artificial intelligence and machine learning.
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Hasan Khan |
The bank has also worked to automate guarantees and letters of credit, as well as its non-standardized local guarantee process using robotic process automation. As a result, both standard and non-standard guarantees were processed with improved turnaround times greater than 90%.
In South Africa, Standard Bank holds a leading market share of 31.4% in letters of credit and a 24.5% market share for guarantees.
The bank has developed several initiatives to help connect African businesses with Chinese suppliers and maintains a renminbi link through its relationship with ICBC.
In June last year, it launched its Africa China Agent Proposition, a platform that connects African importers and Chinese exporters and facilitates trade financing and payments.
It has also provided performance guarantees, which allowed McDermott International to proceed with supplying and contributing to the development of onshore liquefied natural gas in Mozambique.
