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Corporate social responsibility permeates everything Arig does. It is a stable and high-quality institution with roots that date back to 1997, making it one of the country’s oldest lenders, and with branches dotted around the big cities. But it is in the world of CSR that Arig really shines.

South Asia is in some ways a better place for women bankers than almost anywhere else in the region. But there are still serious problems.

We’ve taken these two awards together this year, thanks in large part to an obvious idea Westpac introduced to make life easier for its army of small and medium-sized enterprise clients. Westpac positions itself as Australia’s bank for business. It claims to have banking relationships with more than a million business customers, or half of all Australian businesses, and is the primary banker for about 25% of that million; it holds A$111 billion ($79.8 billion) of their deposits while lending them a collective A$150 billion.

For Korea’s commercial banking sector, 2018 was an annus horribilis; many of the biggest lenders were assailed by recruitment scandals that claimed several chief executives, while underlying business was squeezed by a bunch of impressively disruptive digital upstarts.

Nominating a winner for this award is not easy. Korea’s economy is dominated by conglomerates whose interests stretch across multiple sectors and markets. Meeting their day-to-day corporate and investment banking needs is big business for local and foreign lenders alike, and the quality of service between one institution and another can be difficult to define and discern.

Foreign lenders have long struggled to crack Korea. It’s a tough place in which to operate; bruising and bitterly competitive, only the tough and fully committed survive.

A decade ago, the founders or scions of corporate empires dominated the rich lists. But in recent years, the face of wealth has changed to reflect the successes of a younger generation of entrepreneurs.

Proving one’s worth in terms of corporate social responsibility isn’t easy. Some banks pay the concept little more than lip service or ignore it altogether. At the other extreme, PR-conscious global banks can often overshadow the quieter success stories that are woven by smaller regional or local lenders.

It would be hard to find a part of this vast frontier state that isn’t served by Khan Bank. The former agricultural lender is the country’s best and most-rounded financial institution by a long shot.