Standard Chartered Global Business Services: A Competitive Advantage for the Bank

Standard Chartered is a pioneer in banking with a heritage spanning over 160 years. Its network stretches across core emerging markets in Asia, Africa and the Middle East with a diverse footprint in more than 60 markets.

Playing an important role in supporting the Bank to seamlessly deliver banking services that help people and companies across its markets to prosper is Standard Chartered Global Business Services (Standard Chartered GBS).

Located in Malaysia, India, China and Poland, Standard Chartered GBS drives best practices and provides the Bank with a resilient cross-border 24/7 operating model that leverages on diverse talent availability which has also proven to be invaluable during the COVID-19 crisis.

Standard Chartered established Standard  Chartered Global Business Services Sdn. Bhd. (Standard Chartered GBS Malaysia) in 2001- the first international bank to do so in the country. With a workforce of 150 people to more than 5,000 today, the centre has evolved from a labour arbitrage rationale, focusing on traditional banking operations to becoming a multi-disciplinary high-tech centre.

Located in Technology Park, Bukit Jalil, the nation’s leading Information and Communication Technology hub; Standard Chartered GBS Malaysia provides and delivers a multitude of products and services to the Bank’s businesses globally while offering nearshore support for  Singapore and other key markets in Asia.

“At Standard Chartered GBS Malaysia, our  services utilise the latest technologies to provide end-to-end solutions; with clients at the heart of everything we do. We house various Centre of Excellence (CoE) that cover the entire scope of banking from operations, technology, and financial crime surveillance to compliance and professional services such as Human Centred Design. We leverage on high-tech elements such as robotics and automation. This is to enable our colleagues to focus on higher value and complex activities that still need human intuition and experience,” said Matthew Norris, Standard Chartered’s Global Head of Global Business Services who has chosen to base his global role in Kuala Lumpur.

Redefining banking through leading technologies and best practices 

Over the years, Standard Chartered GBS has developed deep expertise and created new economy jobs. In the areas of technology, for instance, its centre in Malaysia has the distinction of being home to the Bank’s Global Collective Intelligence and Command Centre (CnC). A multimillion-dollar investment, the CnC is coined as the nerve centre of the Bank. It combines best-in-class design, technology and the co-location of subject matter experts in a single industry-leading facility. The CnC operates round the clock, focusing on situational awareness and incident response management.

Another example is GBS X, a multi-faceted innovation CoE for Group Operations across  the Standard Chartered. GBS X operates out of its GBS centres in Malaysia and India. Its core competencies are in the areas of Lean Digital, Robotics Process Automation (RPA), Data Science, Machine Learning, Python, Vision based Optical Character Recognition (OCR), Intelligent Character Recognition (ICR) for handwritten text, Chat Bots and Blockchain.

In the operation space, Standard Chartered  GBS competencies include the areas of Trade Finance, Cash Operations, Financial Markets, Private Banking, Retail Banking as well as services such as Retail Customer Care, Financial Crime Surveillance, Compliance, Legal and Executive Assistant Services.

In 2017, Standard Chartered’s first Financial Markets Islamic Operations CoE was established in Malaysia, with skilled talents in Islamic products and processing, providing 24 hours,  six days a week support to Standard Chartered Saadiq, the Islamic banking arm of the Bank.

“We continue to develop new capabilities to add value to our offerings to the Bank. For example, we recently added Virtual Executive Assistants services to our repertoire and we now support 24 Managing Directors globally in Chennai and Kuala Lumpur,” says Matthew.

GBS talents – A team to be recognised

Driving innovation requires a workforce that  is both willing and able to deliver the work.

In terms of talent, Standard Chartered GBS approach is to acquire international expertise where needed, whilst focusing on local talent development and internal mobility to ensure a  sustainable local talent pipeline. Matthew Norris reveals, “As the Bank’s multi-disciplinary global competency organisation, diversity in our people plays an integral role. We have fantastic talents and the Bank has allocated numerous benefits as well as a great working environment to ensure the talent pool that we have trained and nurtured to stay with us”. For example, in Malaysia, with over 5,000 employees, Standard Chartered GBS Malaysia is home to a significant percentage of the Bank’s employment globally. Out of this, 44 per cent are female employees. There are also 21 differently-abled colleagues among them.

A strong legacy and bright future

It is safe to say that Standard Chartered GBS  has grown exponentially. The organisation’s self-realisation that instead of just providing services on request, its people had the knowledge around processes, products and technology to do more has resulted in an expansion of services offered to Standard Chartered.

“We are now able to offer even more value to  the Bank, leveraging on our knowledge base and sometimes experimenting with different ways of doing things. By listening to the needs of our clients and reacting towards their needs with focus and urgency, we have been able to experiment, develop and implement new solutions in record time,” Matthew explained.

In June 2020, Standard Chartered Malaysia, a member of the network of companies (under Standard Chartered Group) that Standard Chartered GBS is part of, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with MIDA to attract targeted global investments into Malaysia.

These sectors include high-value, high- technology and high-impact investments namely electrical and electronics, machinery and equipment, medical devices, aerospace, renewable energy and consumer technology.

The MoU, through Standard Chartered Malaysia’s local expertise and global reach, enables the potential foreign investors to gain access to banking services and foreign direct investment advisory.

Standard Chartered Malaysia will also be complementing MIDA’s investment promotion  initiatives such as the Trade and Investment missions, conferences and roundtable meetings; including a series of webinars to connect investors globally.

From new roles being migrated into GBS to a  shift towards high-end knowledge work instead of just business process outsourcing work –there has never been a more exciting time to be in Standard Chartered GBS.