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Private banking in the Philippines is about to get a whole lot bigger. For decades, many high net-worth Filipinos were served offshore, in cities such as Singapore and Hong Kong. But that’s changing. Credit Suisse, the best private bank and high-end wealth manager, is expanding its footprint in the country.

Edwin Bautista, president and chief executive of Union Bank of the Philippines, has serious digital ambitions. His financial institution is the country’s standout digital bank, and a worthy winner of this award. But this is just the start. A trailblazer in artificial intelligence and robotic process automation, Union Bank is using blockchain to reach rural lenders, partnering with ConsenSys and Microsoft Azure to develop a blockchain-based interbank switch.

Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC) has been honing its small and medium-sized enterprise operations for years, creating tailored services that cater to all types of SMEs, whatever their size, industry, and ambition. Rizal Microbank meets the needs of micro-sized SMEs, which are estimated to comprise 99.6% of all registered onshore businesses, while its eWMN Programme champions female-owned corporates, offering loans, business education and training, as well as organising networking forums and seminars.

Bank of the Philippine Islands has been a corporate social responsibility leader for decades. Its BPI Foundation, which celebrated its 40th birthday in May this year, continues to channel capital to a huge number of worthy causes. But it is over the last three years that the lender has really taken its CSR profile to the next level, helping to improve social cohesion and environmental protection, aligning itself with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and the national development agenda, and driving domestic innovation and financial inclusion.

It’s hard to compete against DBS, led by Piyush Gupta; the bank reported record earnings last year, with total income rising 4% to S$11.92 billion ($8.7 billion) while net profit, also up 4%, came in at S$4.39 billion. Of the income, Singapore accounted for S$7.79 billion, up 3.4%.

Credit Suisse’s continued domination of the investment banking sector in Indonesia has clearly helped Credit Suisse in the private banking space. The bank claims that 70% of Indonesia’s billionaires bank with it: with Credit Suisse leveraging its domination on the corporate side into private banking.

During 2017 and 2018, Bank Danamon transformed what had merely been a common or garden mobile banking app into a new digital banking channel, as its D-Mobile morphed into D-Bank.

Fun fact: the NISP in the name of one of Indonesia’s oldest banks, OCBC NISP, is a rare holdover from the bank’s beginnings at a time when Indonesia was a Dutch colony. The name Nederlandsch Indische Spaar en Deposito Bank, or Dutch (East) Indies Savings and Deposit Bank, might be a window into history, but as booming Indonesia marks its 73rd year of independence this year, it is with another acronym – SME – that this venerable Singapore-owned bank is making a modern impact.

A state-owned enterprise, and one of Indonesia’s oldest banks, Bank Rakyat Indonesia (or People’s Bank of Indonesia) is setting a new standard for corporate social responsibility in the country with its partnership and community development programme under chief executive Suprajarto Suprajarto, particularly for its public sector.

The Quek clan’s Hong Leong Bank is Malaysia’s oldest local bank, founded in 1905 to serve the Chinese traders of Borneo, but it feels like the country’s newest bank thanks to the arrival of digital-obsessed chief executive Domenic Fuda, HLB’s first Western boss, two years ago.

Credit Suisse’s leadership of Singapore’s corporate and investment banking market makes it the clear winner of Asiamoney’s best corporate and investment bank award.

Singaporeans see Citi, led by country chief executive Han Kwee Juan, as a local bank just as much as an international one, and the numbers tell you why.