HSBC (Asia Pacific) has been named Asia's Best Regional Retail Banking Business and Best Brand Building Initiative in the seventh Asian Banker Excellence in Retail Financial Services Awards Programme. The bank received a total of five awards at The Asian Banker Excellence in Retail Financial Services Awards 2009 ceremony, held in conjunction with the region's foremost retail banking event, the Excellence in Retail Financial Services Convention. The ceremony was held at the Grand Hyatt in Singapore on the evening of 19 March 2009.

About 120 senior bankers from award winning banks in 22 countries across the Asia Pacific, the Gulf and Central Asian regions attended the formal gala dinner, the industry's celebration of the region's best retail bankers that recognises their efforts in bringing superior products and services to their customers. The awards programme, administered by The Asian Banker and refereed by prominent global bankers, consultants and academics, is the most prestigious of its kind.

A stringent three month-long evaluation process, based on a balanced and transparent scorecard, determined the winners and the position of the different retail banks in the region. The five awards won by HSBC are listed below:

HSBC (Singapore) has brought to the table a mortgage proposition that rewards customers for staying long term with the bank.

HSBC was the first in Asia to launch a reverse pricing package that rewards customer loyalty through a programme over three years that translates to more savings for customers in the long run. Following the success of its customised home loan proposition in 2007, it created the reverse pricing package by bringing together cross-departmental and functional expertise within the bank.

HSBC (Asia Pacific) has the most unified and best coordinated regional management among all international banks operating in the region with a consistent, comprehensive and systematic offering of products and services, meeting financial needs of over 14 million customers across 19 diverse sites in the region. Its strategic investments in India, Indonesia, Malaysia, China, Taiwan and Vietnam ensured the continuous growth of its franchise in particular in emerging markets.

HSBC Asia Pacific, including the Middle East, generated $3.92 billion in operating profit, an amount 3.4 times bigger than its closest international competitor in the region. Its year on year decrease of 21% in operating profit was less pronounced compared to Standard Chartered Bank and Citibank. Personal Financial Services for HSBC in the Middle East were particularly successful, recording an 18% increase in profit.

The HSBC brand recognised as the 27th most valuable brand in the world by Interbrand, is one that is familiar in most markets around the world. To drive business growth in Asia, it is essential for HSBC to leverage on and continue to build brand equity regionally via customer-centric marketing activities such as the clear and easy to understand marketing campaigns in 2008 with a consistent look that are in line with both global and local advertising.

With the HSBC brand in different stages of development and at different levels of maturity across Asia, HSBC developed two sets of print campaigns riding on the same global platform to meet local needs comprising the 'credential ads' for mature markets and the 'customer recommendation ads' for entrenched markets.

HSBC (Hong Kong) was the only bank in 2008 which made the greatest progress towards an integrated SME architecture with superior multi channel capabilities, back end processing and differentiated service offerings.

Its previous 'one-size-fits-all' proposition was replaced by HSBC Business Direct, an all-in-one business account combining current, savings (11 currencies), loans and investment accounts. HSBC now manages client relationships using one account number with the HSBC Business Direct and issues a consolidated monthly statement that enables customers to have a total view of their relationship with HSBC.