Awards for Excellence 2020
HSBC retains its title as the Middle East’s best bank for transaction services for the second year running by stepping up to the challenge of helping customers trade and transact at a time of closed borders and supply-chain disruption.
As countries reacted to Covid-19 by shutting borders and implementing curfews and lockdowns, concerns grew about the movement of supplies around the world, especially for urgently needed essential goods. As well as processing a huge increase in transactions, with all of its 400-strong team working from home, HSBC prioritized the movement of essential goods.
“Over the last six to eight weeks, we have seen a tremendous increase in volumes around medical equipment, pharmaceuticals and food trade, which has increased by almost 30% to 40%,” says Sunil Veetil, head of global trade and receivables finance, Middle East, North Africa and Turkey.
“Availability of funding and making these critical goods available to the public as fast as possible were very important, so we made sure these transactions were processed in half the time,” he says.