StanChart announce huge cash mandate

Standard Chartered has announced a huge victory for its regional cash management business, winning a multiple country mandate from Prudential Corporation Asia amid heavy competition from rival banks. The deal, which was formally announced in December, is the largest ever insurance-based cash management award in Asia-Pacific and will cover the nine countries where the UK-based insurer has a presence.

Within the deal, which surpasses all other Asia insurance industry cash management deals by transaction volumes and overall values, Standard Chartered will provide Prudential Corporation Asia with a solution that encompasses payments, collections and liquidity management under one platform for streamlined processing.

"The appointment of Standard Chartered Bank as our cash management provider in nine of our markets is a key step in our on-going efforts to achieve regional benefits and efficiencies across our Asian operations,” says Barry Stowe, Chief Executive of Prudential Corporation Asia. “We are also delighted with the opportunity to build upon our longstanding relationship with the bank. We are confident that this latest venture will provide valuable support to our fast growing insurance and asset management businesses in Asia."

The nine markets included under the mandate are Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines and China, the last of which has more noticeable requirements that other regional countries where Prudential has a presence.

Unlike its other markets included under the cash management mandate, the appointment of Standard Chartered as the cash management provider to China is subject to regulatory restrictions and agreement with Prudential's joint venture partner CITIC where appropriate.

“Our global and regional teams presented customer centric, innovative solutions that provide value creation for Prudential,” says Tarek Anwar, Standard Chartered’s global head of transaction sales. “The depth of our teams and universal solutions delivery platforms enabled us to deliver a proposal that could meet Prudential's present and future requirements across several geographies consistently."

Prior to the mandate win, Standard Chartered and Prudential had forger a deep relationship in areas such as bancassurance, credit cards that pay life insurance premiums in Singapore and wealth management solutions.