Standard Chartered and Agricultural Bank of China Further Co-operation
Standard Chartered Bank and Agricultural Bank of China (ABC) have made progress in forging co-operation between the two banks since inking their memorandum of understanding (MOU) in June. The MOU aimed for the two banks to leverage on their complementary strengths to better serve the respective clients and augment their business platforms.
The two banks have set up business co-operation task force in a number of key areas with specific goals in mind and some of them would involve joint ventures. ABC has stated that it chooses Standard Chartered as its preferred partner for trade and cash management. Standard Chartered and ABC are developing full suite of cross-border trade co-operation ranging from tailored supply chain solutions for specific clients to full trade services solutions geared towards ABC’s customer base.
To support China’s ‘going out’ policy and meet the global ambitions of Chinese corporations, the two banks will focus on improving client servicing for ABC’s large client base. They will co-operate on developing a suite of product capabilities, including financial markets, debt capital markets, equity capital market, merger and acquisition (M&A), corporate advisory, structured trade finance, project finance and transaction banking globally to better serve the selected clients.
Both banks committed to enhance their collaboration in the small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) business through referral programmes. They would also explore setting up business ventures to support the increasing needs of the Chinese SMEs both domestically in China as well as overseas.
Jaspal Bindra, executive director and Asia chief executive officer (CEO) of Standard Chartered, said: “Our strategic co-operation with ABC, one of the largest banks in China, will play an important role in growing our business globally. With strong commitment from the senior management of both banks, we are delighted to see significant progress made on the next step of implementing our strategic co-operation. We believe the complementary strengths of the two banks will not only foster our mutual business growth but also contribute to the further development of the global financial industry.”