Dao Heng Bank to develop corporate internet banking with Octasoft

Asian banks have generally been a bit slow in offering their services online, and while most banks now offer online functionality for retail customers, there are few that have successfully exploited the potential for serving corporate customers over the internet. Dao Heng Bank hopes to realize its plans for the business-to-business (B2B) sector by the end of the year, and has signed a partnership with e-finance software vendor Octasoft to develop a corporate banking solution for its customers.

The Hong Kong-based bank, part of the Guoco Group, has offered a retail banking service called e-banking since April this year and executive director James Eng says it is time to gear up for Hong Kong’s growing B2B market. Octasoft will provide its iBanc Suite and ePlatform products to enable Dao Heng to tap into an explosive growth in e-commerce transaction volumes in the Asia-Pacific. International Data Corporation predicts that by 2003, the total value of e-commerce revenues in the Asia-Pacific region will reach $50.7 billion, up from $2.1 billion in 1999.