A few years ago, Standard Chartered made a decision to integrate itself more fully into the supply chains of its clients. The goal: use technology to connect into its clients' ecosystems, upending the traditional model of banking services.
"There was a realization a few years ago that businesses are evolving and they're evolving quite rapidly - we've seen that in a number of industries and there's no reason why banking will be any different. So we evolved our strategy to focus on banking our clients' ecosystems," Michael Vrontamitis, Standard Chartered's head of trade, Europe & Americas, told Fastmarkets.The bank, he noted, is active in 40 different markets across Asia, Africa and the Middle East and provides services for companies ranging from small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) up to global corporates. Its interest became how it could become a core bank across its client mix, providing a holistic service across trade finance, foreign exchange, cash management and other areas. "What that means is we have to change our thinking. We can't use the traditional model - we need to have a proprietary platform that requires every corporate in that ecosystem to...