Tell us about Bank Asia’s vision/ strategy to attract more depositors.
Deposit is the lifeblood of any bank, based on which it plans on business expansion, and ensures sustainable profitability.
Bank Asia PLC, being one of the leading private commercial banks, has already established its brand value among the market peers and customers.
Leveraging the bank's brand value, the bank is strategizing on the following major areas to attract more depositors by regularly communicating with customers in order to strengthen banking relationships.
We are also updating our customers with the bank's financial strengths for retaining their confidence.
Not only that, but we are offering competitive rates taking into account Bank Asia’s market positioning strategy.
We are also designing/re-aligning segment-wise corporate and retail liability products with better propositions.
Our initiatives also include centralizing corporate business units and offering efficient cash management service, pay-roll banking through dedicated corporate liability department/desk to large corporate houses in order to collect their transactional accounts.
Branches are also being converted into retail sales and service models for driving retail liability business.
The Priority Banking segment has also been introduced with competitive value added service for the high net worth (HNW) retail customers for booking large ticket funds.
We are also cross-selling different products, including retail, to corporate customers, as well as boosting deposit mobilization through best use of our agent banking channels.
Our dormant account customers are also being incentivized to regularize their account transactions.
Lastly, our focus is more on digitalization and automation to ensure cutting edge technology based customer service for the retail as well as corporate customers.
What are some of the banking products and services your bank is focusing on?
In Bank Asia, we have various products and services to cater the needs of our valued clients. We are currently focusing on diversifying our corporate loan portfolio concentration into SME/retail business to make the loan mix 50:50, which is now around 75: 25 which will certainly benefit us in reducing concentration risk.
Moreover, banking is a service-based organization, therefore, we are focusing on strengthening our customer service for both corporate and retail clients.
In this connection, we are in process to centralize our corporate business relationship for ensuring dedicated banking service to large corporate houses.
Similarly, we are working on converting our branches into retail sales & service outlets in order to have better customer satisfaction and loyalty.
To reduce turnaround time, support business growth and for better control, we are taking steps to centralize our back office.
Moreover, we are putting effort on enriching our digital platform for faster banking service.
How can NPLs be contained and kept under control?
Various steps are required to keep NPLs in control, such as raising flag/ early warning/ ventilating information well in advance at pre-classification stage to branches and respective business wings.
Similarly, taking coordinated and preventive measures to refrain the asset portfolio from probable down gradation is also important.
Among newer methods, employing AI-based robust monitoring systems to track customers repayment behavior is also crucial, while it is also imperative to properly follow-up and supervise NPL-prone branches.
Lastly, we must strengthen loan recovery drives by efficient teams, and initiate appropriate legal action in a timely manner.
