STANCHART VOTED BEST ONLINE PROVIDER OF BANKING SERVICES

Standard Chartered Bank has been named the best corporate Internet bank by Global Finance, an international financial services magazine.

The award is in recognition of its efforts to spearhead Internet banking in the country courtesy of its webBank service. This is an Internet banking product for corporate clients that recently introduced Straight2Bank, integrated, end-to-end electronic trading platform that also received honour.

“We are delighted with the awards,” said Robert Kola, head of transaction banking, East Africa. “It is recognition that Straight2Bank offers all our clients leading edge working capital solutions across all products and geographies.”

The service was designed in response to the increasing client need for greater integration between transaction banking and foreign exchange risk management, under liquidity management.

The award comes in the wake of a recent Sh14 billion deal that Standard Chartered received alongside other lead arrangers and senior lenders for the Tiomin Resources financing for the Kwale mineral sands project.

The financing plan won the bank Deal of the Year award in this year’s Bankers Awards. The Tiomin project is Kenya’s first major mining project and one of the country’s largest foreign investments in recent years.

The bank and the other financial arrangers met the financial requirements in just four months through coordinating multi-sourced financing from commercial institutions as well as development finance institutions.

Straight2Bank services provide cash, trade, foreign exchange and securities services through a single sign-on access module. The enhanced platform provides clients with an efficient, modernised and straight through processing of their transactions. This has resulted in significant operating efficiency and cost saving, since it was launched in May this year.

The Global Financial awards aims at not just looking at financial performance of a bank, but at the whole business from its impact on the community as a whole to its progress in fulfilling the needs of its shareholders, investors or owners.

The magazine editors and reporters select the winners from the institutions that reliably provide the best banking services in local and regional and global markets.



SOURCE: DAILY NATION