The Bank of East Asia, Ltd. hailed at the ABF Awards

The bank was recognised for their all-round achievements in full-year results, client segment growth, digital development, and their strategic alliance.

The Bank of East Asia, Ltd. (BEA) took home two accolades—Domestic Retail Bank of the Year - Hong Kong and Strategic Partnership of the Year - Hong Kong—at the recently concluded Retail Banking Awards 2020, presented by Asian Banking and Finance magazine.

The event honours the most outstanding banks and financial institutions that have introduced products and services which empowered them to successfully adapt with the rapidly evolving banking landscape.

Despite a subdued economy and a prolonged period of local social unrest, BEA’s retail operations in Hong Kong posted strong results in 2019. Clients responded favourably to the Bank’s increased product capabilities, refined value proposition, digital enhancements, and strengthened customer relationship team. Wealth management business demonstrated resilient growth in the face of weaker market sentiment

BEA earned the retail banking award with their targeted segmentation efforts, which contributed to double-digit growth in both their affluent and emerging-affluent customer base. The Bank has also striven for service excellence for their clients and achieved customer satisfaction, as proven by BEA’s long-lasting customer relationships.

BEA’s digital strategy strives to ensure a positive banking experience by offering innovative banking services that meet the needs of customers. BEA Flash, a new app for remote account opening, was launched with a market-first “Live Chat” feature. BEA Flash shortens the account-opening process to just six minutes. Mobile wealth management capabilities were also enhanced, with a wide range of products—including unit trusts, linked deposits, and short-term life insurance—made available through the bank’s mobile channels.

Digital customer penetration has reached 50% and close to 80% of financial transactions are made through automated channels. Activated mobile banking users grew strongly by 37% over the year.

The bank also formed a strategic alliance with a number of external service providers, enabling it to integrate with their ecosystems and leverage open APIs to share product information and process applications. The strategic alliance aims to deepen the digital transformation of BEA’s banking services and bring greater convenience to customers in their daily lives. The partnership has also extended the Bank’s foothold to business partners’ networks and considerably increased the number of customer touchpoints.

Since the start of the pandemic, the bank has launched a number of measures to help support the local community through a difficult time, such as relief loans, a mortgage principal moratorium programme, initiatives by the bank’s dynamic staff volunteer force, and donations to people in need in partnership with local charities and NGOs.

BEA’s two awards showcase the bank’s achievements in Hong Kong and their dedication to customers and the wider community.