Global Banking & Finance Review Issue 19 - Business & Finance Magazine

19 9 772396

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A s i a | A mer ica s | EMEA

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UNIONBANK AMONG ‘MOST HELPFUL BANKS IN ASIA-PACIFIC’ DURING COVID-19 The only Phl bank in the Top 20

A screen grab from the website of bankquality.com shows UnionBank ranking second to South Korea’s KakaoBank on the list of most helpful banks in the Asia-Pacific during the COVID-19 crisis.

Union Bank of the Philippines (UnionBank) has been ranked as the second most helpful bank in Asia-Pacific during the coronavirus crisis – the only Philippine bank in the top 20 list.

UnionBank was next only to KakaoBank, South Korea’s largest digital-only bank, according to the BankQuality Consumer Survey on Retail Banks - an online survey conducted last April 1-30, 2020 and covering total 11,000 respondents, with 1,000 each coming from China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.

The respondents, aged between 18 to 65 and who have at least one bank account each, chose the banks most beneficial to them amid the ongoing pandemic because of their contactless nature and digital services.

UnionBank was ranked higher than international banks such as HSBC, Citibank, DBS, CIMB, United Overseas Bank and OCBC, among others.

UnionBank president and CEO Edwin Bautista expressed gratitude for the public’s recognition of the bank’s quick, sincere and relentless efforts to help alleviate their plight in this difficult time.

“It warms our hearts to know that our customers recognize and value our heroic efforts during this crisis.

The coronavirus pandemic has brought the world an unprecedented disruption, but with each of us doing our share, we will weather this challenge – no matter how massive it can be,” Bautista said.

Since the start of the quarantine period, UnionBank boosted its mobile and web banking platforms for retail and corporate customers namely UnionBank Online and The Portal, respectively, to enable clients to safely do their banking transactions from home.

UnionBank was also among the first banks to waive its online fund transfer fees, and deployed its Bank On Wheels to bring its bank branches at the doorstep of its customers.

“I would like to also thank our very hardworking and selfless UnionBankers – frontliners all - who have been doing their utmost during this pandemic to deliver safe, consistent and full service digital banking to our customers, for this accolade,” Bautista added.

The bank’s fintech arm UBX, has facilitated the release of cash subsidies through the deployment of mobile automated teller machines (ATMs) to its rural bank partners and financial cooperatives where beneficiaries of the government’s Social Amelioration Program can withdraw their money quickly.

UBX has also begun linking its rural bank members to its new network that includes Cebuana Lhuillier, LBC, Palawan Express and PeraHub. This enables customers of these rural banks to send funds and payments to over 11,000 branches of the four remittance centers nationwide.

For the full list of the most helpful banks, please log on to https://bit.ly/2MtE9jh.

EMPOWERING WOMEN Brought to you by Amret

IN BUSINESS

Amret execu�ve director Estelle Darie speaks to The Post about empowering Cambodian women in business Congratulations to Amret for being recognized with the "2020 Leading Financial Institution for Empowering Women in Business in Cambodia " award from Global Finance Magazine.

Q Can you explain more about this segment and why empowering women in business in Cambodia is so important?

ED: Thank you. It is indeed an honour for Amret to be recognised as the "Leading Financial Ins�tu�on for Empowering Women in Business in Cambodia". Amret, since its early years has always recognized the importance of women playing a pivotal role in the economic and social development of families in Cambodia. More than 90% of our clients during our forma�ve years in the early 1990s were women as we were offering only small group loans in villages and women trusted us first. Today, 68% of our borrowers are women across all segments and in all types of business.

As we know, women are the cornerstone of families across the global, and it is no different for women here in Cambodian. Not only do they contribute strongly to household income with their work – in business, farming or industry – but they are usually the ones in charge of their children’s educa�on and well-being.

Q Why is access to finance cri�cal for women in the Kingdom?

ED: In Cambodia, as in most countries around the globe, gender inequality in terms of access to finance is s�ll fairly wide. The UN Capital Development Fund reported in 2018 that the average loan for women was $825, while it was $1,500 for men. Despite this gap, women are more loyal borrowers, and the report showed that women were staying longer with the same financial ins�tu�on, hence enhancing the capacity for them to save long term and improve their situa�on.

This gender inequity has to be addressed, and Amret wants to play a significant role in that.

Amret will con�nue to provide affordable financial solu�ons to empower the women, which will eventually not only help crea�ng jobs, but also benefit communi�es.

This will in turn help to li� the living standards of communi�es and promote women entrepreneurship.

Q How does Amret concretely support women, and how is it different from other financial ins�tu�ons?

ED: Amret is a strong believer in promo�ng women's enterprises by equipping them with business training in areas such as financial literacy and agricultural produc�vity. In 2019, 90% of the par�cipants in our financial literacy training were women. 44% of the 2,000 farmers who undertook voca�onal training, which is run in collabora�on with experts from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, also were women.

In 2020, as we strongly believe that women must be given the opportunity to excel in business, we took the stand to offer our training mostly only to women –with a focus on digital as well as financial literacy.

Regarding digital, we have on top of training also developed products leveraging on technology and data that are specifically aimed at mee�ng women’s needs. For instance, we have field saving officers who offer off-premises deposit services to small business women selling in markets who have the possibility of saving a few dollars every day without moving from their stall. Our staff are equipped with tablets to immediately register the transac�ons in a fully secure manner. Our clients will then receive an immediate SMS no�fica�on that their account has been credited.

Witnessing how well this service was appreciated – with more than 20,000 micro depositors using it – we decided last year to go beyond just off-premises deposit collec�ons by offering the "Fast Emergency Loan" to women who have shown regular disciplined saving. Loans applica�ons, approval and disbursement can be concluded within 24 hours, with no collateral, should they have a family emergency or a small business opportunity.

I was talking to a client who has benefited from this loan the other day; she men�oned that not only has she managed to save much more than previously when she took back all her money home made from daily sales, but also a great advantage she saw was her ability ‘’to get a

loan on her own without her husband having to approve or guarantee for it!‘’ I reckon this is the financial independence that all women are looking for.

Women of today want to know what a product is going to do for them, and how it will help them and make their lives easier – for as we all know, a woman’s work is never done!

So it is important to note that that changes to be made must involve commi�ed leadership by financial ins�tu�ons to offer products that meet the needs of women in business.

Q Will Covid-19 disrupt Amret’s plan to support women entrepreneurship in the Kingdom?

ED: We expect women to be among the most severely affected segments by the economic crisis resul�ng from the Covid-19 outbreak. However, Covid-19 will not disrupt Amret’s plans to support and promote women entrepreneurship in Cambodia. In the current environment, Amret’s "Empowering Women in Business" programme is needed more than ever.

In the post-Covid-19 phase, women in business will represent opportunity for the wider community. Communi�es and society as a whole will acknowledge the importance of the role of women in the business world.

With more women involved in supplemen�ng household income, they will become successful across micro, small, medium and large businesses.

US consul�ng firm McKinsey measures the Asia Pacific region in its Gender Parity Score at 0.58 – with 1 being perfect gender equality – while North America and Europe each stand at 0.76. So, there is much to do and plenty of room for improvement to close the gap.

Amret will play a strong role empowering women in that new context, as we believe that with addi�onal and more adequate access to finance, women can contribute much more to the Cambodian economic growth and community well-being.

www.amret.com.kh

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