CASE STUDY 1: CITI CHINA DESK
Citi Commercial Bank bridges cultural gap with China Desk initiative The desk opens Singapore to mid-sized Chinese firms seeking to penetrate ASEAN.
CCB opened a new China Desk in Singapore dedicated to China’s emerging market champions
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sian consumers have started to thirst for Chinese brands. Take the demand for phone brands, for example—a survey found that these consumers’ top five picks, amongst the ten most preferred global brands, are from China. To support Chinese firms taking advantage of this trend, Citi Commercial Bank (CCB) opened a new China Desk in Singapore dedicated to China’s emerging market champions. The new desk adds to CCB’s expanding network of six Asia desks in the region. Although the China Desk concept is not new to Citi and Singapore, this recently established desk is unique because it is the first for Citi to support mid-sized businesses from China to use Singapore as a launching pad into the country and other markets in ASEAN, CCB’s Managing Director and Singapore & ASEAN Head Hsiu-Yi Lin told Asian Banking & Finance. “We launched the first Singaporebased China Desk to serve our
20 ASIAN BANKING & FINANCE | Q1 2022
With CCB’s China Desk, clients can have the complexity of entering new markets cut down significantly
Chinese clients in Singapore back in 2010. And a second desk in Singapore was launched back in 2018 to serve Chinese clients expanding into ASEAN from Singapore,” Hsiu-Yi explained, emphasising that these desks support Chinese multinational companies (MNCs). What makes the CCB China Desk stand out is that it is helmed by experienced bankers, with several of them from China—specifically from the CCB China branch. “These specialists have a deep understanding of the local operating and regulatory environments across the different ASEAN markets on top of Citi’s products and services. Importantly, many of these bankers have supported these Chinese firms back in China before their expansion into Southeast Asia, and so, they have deep knowledge of the requirements of these clients in addition to understanding the nuances of the Chinese business culture, language and etiquette,”
Hsiu-Yi said. One-stop-shop With CCB’s China Desk, clients can have the complexity of entering new markets cut down significantly. “We notice that as companies grow rapidly, expand internationally, or both, they inevitably encounter challenges in their banking flow that could slow them down or prevent them from reaching their full potential. Without a global bank or global solutions, these companies would spend endless hours on their banking needs to the point that it becomes an obstacle in their journey,” Hsiu-Yi said. Hsiu-Yi explained that, in the past, if clients want to enter several markets in ASEAN, they have to work with CCB’s local teams in every market. And if they don’t work with CCB, they would have to work with different banks across these markets. With the Singapore China Desk, it is now a one-stop-shop for them, made more easily as they are manned
