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Every year, Vietnam’s capital markets take the next step in their long-term development, growing in size and maturity. And each year, investment bankers fight tooth and nail over the deals that pepper the market: a few chunky IPOs and equity placements here; a couple of government debt sales and syndicated loans there. It all adds up.

Some international lenders don’t quite know what to make of Vietnam. Perhaps the last great, untapped emerging market, it is bursting with potential, but still a work-in-progress. It oozes growth and entrepreneurial spirit, yet the capital markets are young and there are precious few firms of genuine scale.

Digital banking, a slow burn in Vietnam, finally seems to have taken flame. In recent years, domestic banks have been frantically rolling out new online services to demanding customers. Some of these underwhelm, while others, such as privately run VPBank’s digital channel Timo, impress. But none can hold a candle to Citi. The US lender, a growing digital force across Asia, clearly sees Vietnam as a key part of its regional strategy. It uses its local Facebook page (launched four years ago and with 190,000 fans) to target customers and reinforce its brand, then focus on the sale (the digital contribution to Citi’s credit card acquisition rate rose 29% year on year in 2017).

When it comes to private banking in Thailand, two names stand head and shoulders above the competition: Credit Suisse and Phatra Securities, a member of Kiatnakin Phatra financial group. Both are leaders in the field. But while Phatra is known as the pioneer of Thailand’s onshore private wealth management service, Credit Suisse is a global bank that offers both onshore and offshore wealth management services to wealthy individuals, families and entrepreneurs, including a large percentage of the names on Forbes’ list of Thailand’s 50 richest people.

In Thailand’s fast-changing digital banking landscape, it is hard to stay ahead of the game. Still, under head of digital banking Tana Pothikamjorn, Siam Commercial Bank, the country’s oldest lender, has done precisely that. Building on the bank’s reputation as a disrupter, SCB was the first Thai commercial bank to scrap fees on digital transactions for money transfers and bill payments in March.

In a banking landscape divided between large domestic banks, large international banks and hybrids, Citi Thailand, under country head Darren Buckley, stands out as something a bit different. A truly global bank, it also boasts a large retail presence, made up of three full service branches and 32 Citi network branches that provide a complete range of consumer banking, credit card and foreign exchange services to over one million customers. Then there is Citi’s formidable network of corporate clients, ranging from multinationals and financial institutions to public sector and local conglomerates.

Thailand’s small and medium-sized enterprise sector was probably not the best business segment to be in over the past 12 months. Several high-profile companies struggled to service or repay their loans, leading to debt restructurings and write-offs at the banks. According to credit ratings agency Standard & Poor’s, the non-performing loan ratio for SMEs rose to 4.63% in 2017 from 4.4% in 2016, and exceeded the NPL ratio of 2.97% for total loans in the banking system.

This may well be the toughest award to win in Vietnam. Over the last decade, the government has focused its attention on the country’s army of small and medium-sized enterprises, reckoned by the Credit Information Centre to number 500,000. Banks are tacitly encouraged to lend to them and to offer preferential rates to borrowers.

Corporate and social responsibility is still a relatively new thing in Vietnam. Most banks channel a portion of their capital to worthy causes, but their limited resources are often spread thinly: many seeds are scattered in the hope that a few will grow. Saigon-Hanoi Commercial Joint Stock Bank (SHB), led by chief executive Nguyen Van Le and one of the country’s big-five privately owned lenders by assets, has opted for a more systematic approach to CSR. Over the past year, its ‘Love sharing’ and ‘Wings of faith’ programmes sent D5 billion ($215,000) worth of gifts (clothing, books, food) to the children of disadvantaged families, while also delivering invaluable leadership skills and lessons.

From Malaysia’s central bank to its largest commercial bank, women are at the helm — and they are actively working to promote the next crop of female leaders.

Bank of Ayudhya, known locally as Krungsri, is widely viewed by analysts as the bank to watch in Thailand over the next five years. Since its acquisition by Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi in 2013, Bank of Ayudhya, under CEO Noriaki Goto, has built up an enviable reputation for the quality of its international management team, its expertise in consumer finance and product development and its new focus on SMEs.

Few countries in Asia are as in need of an enlightened corporate culture as Cambodia, with its tragic history and lost generations.