Transcript
Speaker: This is HSBC Global Viewpoint, your window into the thinking, trends and issues shaping global banking and markets.
Speaker: Join us as we hear from industry leaders and HSBC experts on the latest insights and opportunities for your business.
Speaker: A heads up to our listeners that this episode has been recorded remotely, therefore the sound quality may vary.
Speaker: Thank you for listening.
Speaker: I'm Florence Tan, Country Head of Global Trade and Receivables Finance for Mainland China.
Speaker: 2020 has been such an extraordinary year with lots of uncertainty and unexpected events spanning from unprecedented health crisis, stock market volatility, to a number of geopolitical issues as well.
Speaker: Now, against this backdrop, many sectors have survived, have adversely been affected and are struggling to survive.
Speaker: In contrast, e-commerce has been one of the bright spots that has showed continuing resilience and booming demand.
Speaker: As its development is poised to accelerate given the growing online population, and as we turn to a brand new year, it is a good time for us to reflect the path that leads to today's success and envision the future state that we can all shape collectively.
Speaker: So today, I'm very pleased to be joined by a group of sector experts
Speaker: who have broad exposure and deep knowledge of the e-commerce sector to share with us their insights and also about the trends and opportunities of this exciting part of the economy.
Speaker: So join me to welcome Mr. Matthew Liu, Head of Global Partnership, Blockchain Trade Finance of Ant Group, Mr. Alex Sawaya, Partner and Leader of Retail Practice for Asia Pacific, McKinsey & Company,
Speaker: Mr. Louis Sun, Regional Head of Product, Global Liquidity and Cash Management Asia Pacific, HSBC.
Speaker: And Mr. Simon Tang, General Manager, Merchant Partnership, Hong Kong Television Network Limited, also known as HKTV Mall.
Speaker: We will start the panel discussion, after which we hope to leave some time for questions.
Speaker: So please feel free to raise any questions that you may have in the Q&A box at the bottom.
Speaker: Okay, so first of all, first question to Alex, what are your observations of the development of the e-commerce segment?
Speaker: Thank you, Florence, and good afternoon, everyone.
Speaker: Are you hearing me fine?
Speaker: Does this sound okay?
Speaker: So a great question.
Speaker: So I think the development of e-commerce has been really an irreversible trend, right?
Speaker: So this is something that, you know, it's no secret for everyone.
Speaker: The question was really kind of over the years is, you know, how will different countries and markets basically develop and how quickly?
Speaker: In the past, what we've seen is the emergence of very clear plays around digital ecosystems.
Speaker: Digital ecosystems that have developed
Speaker: developed in the US, in China, obviously because of scale, but you see that develop as well in Japan, Korea, as well as Europe.
Speaker: A lot of countries, if you think about Southeast Asia, have been less developed, have been trying to get inspired by China and its growth paths in terms of modernization of trade.
Speaker: And this was going through e-commerce, or at least digital.
Speaker: COVID hit and the interesting thing to note there is, you know, really COVID has accelerated what we call kind of seen decades happen in days across the board, be it, you know, on e-commerce, be it in a cross category.
Speaker: The...
Speaker: Past, I mean, most of you probably have known, right, that electronics is a category that has long been online.
Speaker: Beauty as well.
Speaker: These are products that are easy to sell online that have been relatively successful in driving e-commerce penetration, high value items.
Speaker: The biggest question was around the biggest and largest category, which is grocery.
Speaker: And what you've seen, obviously, throughout COVID with all these stores and the networks being closed, that this has actually accelerated.
Speaker: If we take China, for example, e-commerce on grocery has increased 20 percentage points.
Speaker: It really went from around 2% to 3% towards 20%.
Speaker: Our projections in the most optimistic scenario lead us to believe that 30% will become
Speaker: the norm the the the penetration um in china for for grocery this has been underpinned by a few things right so one is in the past economics of these um of these categories were difficult to make happen and the consumer were less likely to actually buy these categories if they were not in the store
Speaker: Basically, COVID has pushed the boundaries.
Speaker: People were forced to try new experiences.
Speaker: In China, it's stuck.
Speaker: It's stuck in Hong Kong.
Speaker: It's stuck in Japan.
Speaker: Korea has really leaped on these categories.
Speaker: If you think about the way going forward, it's no longer around whether e-commerce is going to evolve across different retail categories.
Speaker: Question is, how would players be able to compete, the traditional ones at least, in the new normal?
Speaker: You see a lot of players that are re-exiting markets like Carrefour in China, like Auchan.
Speaker: They've exited because getting the economics right, competing in an e-commerce,
Speaker: e-commerce business or era is becoming more difficult.
Speaker: Same thing, by the way, for apparel.
Speaker: Apparel during COVID has completely shifted online.
Speaker: With the recovery, for example, in China or in Japan, we've not seen traffic go back to the stores.
Speaker: People are buying online.
Speaker: They are liking the experiences.
Speaker: Retailers and online players have adopted their model in order to make the customer experience and the service level up to the cost.
Speaker: customer's expectations.
Speaker: Great.
Speaker: Thanks, Alex.
Speaker: I think hearing from you, yeah, can you hear me?
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So thank you, Alex.
Speaker: I think hearing from you, e-commerce sector has been very fast growing, right?
Speaker: Across a number of retail categories and the growth itself is really amazing.
Speaker: So maybe I'd like to direct the next question to the man on the ground, right?
Speaker: Simon, you must be thrilled.
Speaker: to have experienced this growth firsthand.
Speaker: So what, in your view, has enabled or propelled such growth?
Speaker: Simon, please.
Speaker: Thank you, Florence.
Speaker: Hello, everyone.
Speaker: This is Simon from HATV Mall.
Speaker: In my point of view, there are two key factors that accelerated the growth of e-commerce.
Speaker: The first one is customer experience.
Speaker: It's about the whole process from browsing products to collecting orders deliveries.
Speaker: Particularly, we think one-stop marketplaces offering a wide variety of choice is important to enhance customer experience.
Speaker: My company HKTV Mall was quite well known for selling groceries items online in the beginning stage.
Speaker: And then we transformed to an online shopping mall selling basically everything.
Speaker: We found this strategy very successful because groceries became our key traffic driver.
Speaker: That keeps our customer comeback very frequently.
Speaker: But when they check out, on average, they would buy three other categories together.
Speaker: For example, beauty products, fashion items, home appliances, etc.
Speaker: Without grocery as a hook, together with a variety of choice, e-commerce companies might struggle to sustain regular traffic.
Speaker: In fact, the largest e-commerce companies in the world are also using this model.
Speaker: Amazon and Alibaba didn't sell groceries when they started, but now they even are operating physical grocery shops for a very good reason.
Speaker: And the second factor, I think, is competition.
Speaker: E-commerce is still a small part in many areas in the world, and it has a huge potential to develop.
Speaker: But if we are talking about converting majority of offline sales to online, only a few competitors in the market is not enough.
Speaker: The outbreak of COVID-19 is like a wake-up call to many brands and consumers, which rely on offline channels to explore e-commerce.
Speaker: And the engagement level of the competitors is also so important for penetrating into consumers' daily life and thus changing their shopping behavior.
Speaker: And the fact is, once customers go online, they won't easily go offline.
Speaker: All the e-commerce companies need to do is to provide an excellent customer experience and keep the customer happy.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: Thanks, Simon.
Speaker: Totally agree, right?
Speaker: I mean, customer experience is definitely the most important consideration for any business success, including for banks like us.
Speaker: and healthy competition really does shape the landscape that everyone can thrive in.
Speaker: So now directing the next question to Matthew.
Speaker: So in your opinion, what do you find as most important for your organization's success?
Speaker: Matthew, please.
Speaker: Thank you, Florence.
Speaker: So I can share probably one perspective from our experience in Alibaba and Ant Group ecosystem, which is how technology has empowered a new operating model.
Speaker: So the example is there's the existing relationship among product, place and people.
Speaker: where the products are first designed and produced, then put in places to reach them, and ultimately the focus is to sell to the people who are the consumers as well as other business.
Speaker: Now with technology, we can do it in the reverse way, especially in the e-commerce area, right?
Speaker: So first you get real-time feedback from the people, which are the consumers and business again, you know, to see and to be.
Speaker: And their feedbacks and their preferences can be collected in a relatively real-time manner.
Speaker: And then with big data and AI, this can form decisions in terms of what to produce.
Speaker: Yeah?
Speaker: And then the second part is where AI, big data and IOT technologies comes into play.
Speaker: How to strategize where to put these goods and services in order to reach the people.
Speaker: So this part is also very critical
Speaker: And just for clarification, this doesn't only include websites or apps, brick and mortar shops as well, because these are all good channels when you put this algorithm in place.
Speaker: And then the third part comes into production.
Speaker: And we've seen that in the industry, there are a lot of good practice using blockchain, big data and AI technologies to make the design and production in a swift and secure way.
Speaker: And so this is the product part.
Speaker: And we believe only technology can enable this reverse relationship
Speaker: among product, place and people to happen in order to serve the customer better.
Speaker: And this is something, you know, we believe not only a traditional e-commerce business can adopt, but maybe this can be gradually accepted by the industry, by different industries.
Speaker: Again, the focus is the people, yeah, the consumers and other business to whom you try to sell your product.
Speaker: So that's my sharing.
Speaker: Thanks, Florence.
Speaker: Thanks, Matthew.
Speaker: You're absolutely right.
Speaker: I think technology is a very critical catalyst in this modern world nowadays.
Speaker: And personally, I feel very lucky that we have so many advanced technologies at our disposal.
Speaker: So just continuing with our next question, Matthew, do you think all stops have been pulled for the e-commerce business?
Speaker: You know, how about coming from a cross-border perspective?
Speaker: What are the challenges that you have observed?
Speaker: Thank you, Florence.
Speaker: Right, so our current business now, you know, focus in cross-border e-commerce in the B2B area.
Speaker: So our name is Trustful to make trust simple.
Speaker: And that's why I want to share some perspective from the SMEs perspective.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We believe trust, trust.
Speaker: is the critical matter that may potentially have impeded some growth when we talk about cross-border e-commerce.
Speaker: um think about you know the traditional model of building trust in the cross-border area um this this may be readily available for larger players multinationals um you know the companies with sufficient means and and connections yeah but but but for smes yeah hundreds of millions of them trying to get into the cross-border e-commerce area um you know think about language
Speaker: jurisdiction, foreign currency, etc.
Speaker: So all these would complicate this matter for them.
Speaker: So we have a joke in the tech business.
Speaker: The longest distance is between you trying to talk to me while I'm responding to my Facebook message.
Speaker: But think another case.
Speaker: You know, this is a mom and pop sportswear shop in Thailand and a local manufacturer in China.
Speaker: They don't speak the same language and they cannot meet to shake hands, even if they manage to communicate some business intention.
Speaker: Now, how to pay?
Speaker: How much to pay?
Speaker: In what currency?
Speaker: How to shift?
Speaker: Is there a guarantee?
Speaker: How much is the guarantee going to cost?
Speaker: How to deal with tariffs and other taxes?
Speaker: How do we ensure quality control?
Speaker: So again, this may be just a checklist, a normal checklist in the cross-border multinational companies office.
Speaker: But again, for these SMEs, this is truly, so this truck building issue is truly the longest distance to travel before this cross-border e-commerce still can happen.
Speaker: But the good thing is, you know, we have seen that, you know, many financial institutions and tech companies in the industry share the same view, how to make trust simple.
Speaker: And then there are multiple different approaches, some with financial methods, some with technologies.
Speaker: We share the same vision and trying to, you know, make this infrastructure easier to use for the SMEs.
Speaker: And so that's my point.
Speaker: Thanks, Florence.
Speaker: Back to you.
Speaker: Thanks.
Speaker: Thanks, Mathieu.
Speaker: And well said.
Speaker: So now to you, Louis.
Speaker: Sorry to keep you waiting.
Speaker: So how do you think banks can then play a bigger and more important role in helping e-commerce players solve these pain points?
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: Thank you, Florence.
Speaker: I think it's really enlightening to listen to the insights from Alex, Simon, Matthew, right?
Speaker: From the bank point of view, apparently, you know, the COVID pandemic,
Speaker: has been really a very unique experience, right?
Speaker: In the beginning of the pandemic, we actually struggled to really bump up our digital and electronic capabilities because the physical contact is no longer possible.
Speaker: By riding on the wave, we have done a lot of digital transformation for our fundamental capabilities.
Speaker: I think one thing we realized is the traditional way to just service our own clients probably is not what our clients are looking for.
Speaker: And we need to also help our clients to connect better to their clients.
Speaker: So we started to look into solutions where, you know, in the past we could, you know, choose not to do.
Speaker: But at the current situation, then we have to do it to help our client to connect to their clients.
Speaker: You know, one example is we pushed out our OmniCollect solution, right?
Speaker: So for online platform, basically, if you want to collect from consumers, normally you need to connect to call a car or connect to individual consumers through the wallets, right, or using banking systems.
Speaker: And then normally you will have to establish multiple connections.
Speaker: But our solution will enable anyone who wants to do an online sales, online settlement by building up just one interface to receive from any consumers.
Speaker: So that, you know, really we have seen the result has been very, very positive.
Speaker: And last year in 2020, right, we had roughly around 3,000 clients going live with this solution.
Speaker: That reflect basically when we talk about e-commerce, probably, you know, a few years ago, it was more topic for e-platforms, e-marketplaces.
Speaker: And now e-commerce is basically a business imperative for almost everyone.
Speaker: And we have a role to play.
Speaker: to help all the consumer brands, retailers to really connect to their consumers.
Speaker: And another point is on a cross-border basis, we do see bigger challenges in this space, partially because from an infrastructure point of view, it is still relatively underdeveloped as compared to domestic settlement or wallets, real-time payment infrastructure, largely helping the online sales
Speaker: online settlements.
Speaker: For the cross-border parts, we have seen a few really positive developments like Swift is trying to enable GPI, provide better transparency, richer information.
Speaker: We are also working with some partners trying to use new technologies like blockchain to realize a real-time cross-border payment experience.
Speaker: I think very soon, probably, you may see some life cases in this space.
Speaker: And last point probably I can highlight is, you know, especially for cross-border e-commerce, we need a really holistic supply chain solution to embed a financing option into an ordinary payment experience, right?
Speaker: That will cover basically merchant financing, digital decisioning, data-based algorithm, right, for faster approval.
Speaker: You know, only with all of this, we will be able to help
Speaker: you know, the real growth of the B2B, B2B2C, or B2C transactions on a cross-border basis.
Speaker: I probably, I will just stop here.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: Thank you, Louis, for helping to promote my supply chain solutions as well.
Speaker: Okay, now moving into the last section of our discussion, which is the topic that we have today.
Speaker: So looking into the future, where do each of you see the rising trends and opportunities?
Speaker: And just a reminder, given we'd like to give some time for Q&A, I will give each of you two minutes to share your views.
Speaker: So maybe we can start with Alex.
Speaker: Let me do that.
Speaker: So...
Speaker: Again, based on what I've shared earlier, I think this trend is going to continue.
Speaker: It's interesting, it's going to evolve.
Speaker: We've already seen that.
Speaker: And a good market to look at is China.
Speaker: China has obviously been kind of the inspiration and then the development.
Speaker: A lot of the ideas are going there.
Speaker: The rest of the world, my clients are being inspired by what's happening there.
Speaker: China, there's really, so in general, there are four things I would say that are going to prevail.
Speaker: First one is we no longer really talk about e-commerce.
Speaker: We talk about omni-channel.
Speaker: It's the term that is the most loosely used.
Speaker: It's probably the most important.
Speaker: The Chinese consumer is 96% omni-channel, right?
Speaker: So they discover products, they buy products in one or two channels, and they basically alter back and forth from product discovery to information to experience to purchase.
Speaker: So Omnichannel is going to be key.
Speaker: This is one of the areas that has been the most difficult for retailers to get right.
Speaker: That's where you also see players like Alibaba, Amazon, and recently Rakuten basically going into physical retail.
Speaker: So now they create that Omnichannel and then kind of that growth experience.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Second one is DTC.
Speaker: We've seen a lot of new ways, basically, that people are engaging and selling to their customers.
Speaker: The easiest one to relate to is probably what's happened in Myanmar, which is typically using Facebook as a commerce website where people cannot be able to trade.
Speaker: In China, we've seen that with, obviously, with WeChat.
Speaker: A lot of the luxury sales that happened during COVID happened by...
Speaker: advisors being able to engage and connect with their kind of elite clients through WeChat and keep that conversation going and frankly close transactions there.
Speaker: There have been a big movement in China now on the fresh side, which is called community buy, where you have people that are connecting with suppliers, taking orders and selling in communities.
Speaker: This has completely changed the supply chain costs
Speaker: that you have on these products, that D2C element is going to continue prevailing.
Speaker: Another big important one that is prevailing everywhere now is B2B2C.
Speaker: which is really no longer about B2B.
Speaker: It's B2B2C.
Speaker: If you think about Vietnam, OneMount Group is really driving into disrupting the fragmented trade, a little bit leveraging or getting inspired.
Speaker: But what Alibaba, Lin Xiu Tong has done in China or Maite Tsai or Maite Tuong.
Speaker: So you have a lot of these kind of B2B elements that are happening.
Speaker: The end game is to link the suppliers all the way to the customers.
Speaker: Last one is C2M, which is customer to manufacturer.
Speaker: It's the reverse trend.
Speaker: This is something that people are experimenting with.
Speaker: Going to spend next 10 seconds.
Speaker: Sorry, there's very important enablers that we need to keep in mind.
Speaker: It's very important to make this whole thing work, and it's important, frankly, for banks.
Speaker: It's really this end-to-end supply chain.
Speaker: It's really this fintech solutions, making sure that you have...
Speaker: payment solutions for small merchants and big merchants.
Speaker: It's financing on the point of sale, supply chain financing, supplier financing that is quite important.
Speaker: And the most important part is big data, right?
Speaker: Really making the big data to reduce the entire cost of the system.
Speaker: I took a bit more than two minutes.
Speaker: Thanks, Alex.
Speaker: No worries.
Speaker: Thanks, Alex.
Speaker: Now moving quickly to Simon.
Speaker: Simon, would you like to share your views?
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: I think e-commerce companies should no longer limit themselves as only an e-commerce marketplace.
Speaker: In fact, many e-commerce giants in the world have been building what we call a digital ecosystem in their markets.
Speaker: Taking my company as an example, we are working on many projects that are not directly related to selling, but the service that surrounds customers' daily life.
Speaker: We have introduced an e-wallet and e-payment method, even food delivery service, live streaming content.
Speaker: This year, we will be launching taxi-hailing service and our pre-owned goods marketplace.
Speaker: What we are trying to do is to compete for the top-of-mind awareness among consumers within the keen and ever-changing competition environment.
Speaker: When we succeed in penetrating into consumers' daily life, our customers will be very sticky to our platform and come back to us whenever they need anything from the internet.
Speaker: That's why e-commerce companies should always evolve themselves and search for a new way of selling.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: Thanks, Simon.
Speaker: I'm sure you have a very exciting journey ahead.
Speaker: So Matthew, how about yourself?
Speaker: Anything to share?
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Very quickly on my side.
Speaker: So I believe technology is going to keep evolving.
Speaker: And at the same time, business, you know, being that, you know, the traditional ones or new forms are going to have new ways of adopting these technologies to make trust as simple, especially in a cross-border business.
Speaker: So like I mentioned earlier, in our business, Trustful, we're very happy to work with HSBC team and then trying to make the cross-border transaction easier for SME.
Speaker: Thanks, Florence.
Speaker: Well, that was short and sharp, Matthew.
Speaker: Okay, and finally going into Louis, what would you like to share from a financial service provider's perspective?
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: I think, you know, probably I'm in agreement with...
Speaker: you know, all the panelists have view on this, probably just to add a few points, right?
Speaker: The first one is, I do believe we're going to see a convergence of the digital payment instruments.
Speaker: Essentially, you know, the biggest wave we have seen in the, you know, recent years is really the push from electronic to digital, right?
Speaker: When I highlight this, probably it's a bit of a confusing, but think about this, right?
Speaker: Electronic mode, basically we're still counting on file transfer
Speaker: Day-end reconciliation, cut off time to make things work.
Speaker: But in the digital world, we're talking about message exchange, real-time transfer, 24 by 7, positive confirmation on a real-time basis, and an embedded financing option, right?
Speaker: I believe if you look at all the major instruments on the market, bank transfers, wallets, credit cards, I think they are all moving toward the same direction to get the same experience.
Speaker: That's probably the first point I want to share.
Speaker: The second point, we may continue to see a very strong push from a government side, mainly from two aspects.
Speaker: One side is a lot of governments are looking into a stronger digital infrastructure to support e-commerce business.
Speaker: And many governments actually are having bilateral or multilateral conversation to establish a better experience on a cross-border basis.
Speaker: And that will greatly help basically the fundamental settlement needs, funds transfer needs to support cross-border e-commerce.
Speaker: Second point, many governments are also coming up with new regulations to govern the usage of data, govern the right way of conducting the business.
Speaker: So basically how to strike a balance between speed and the compliance will be one critical agenda for the e-commerce industry.
Speaker: Probably the last one I want to highlight is really, I guess the online service model, e-commerce model will continue to be very diverse.
Speaker: It's almost impossible given so many different retail and consumer brands are operating with different contexts to adopt one-site face-to-all solution.
Speaker: So I think the challenge for us and probably the direction will be we will see a lot more partnership co-creation.
Speaker: So the concept like banking as a service, connecting via APIs will become more prominent on the market.
Speaker: Thank you, Florence.
Speaker: Back to you.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: Thank you, Louis.
Speaker: In fact, you actually answered the first question that came in.
Speaker: So you're actually moving into the Q&A now.
Speaker: The first question was, what is your view of the competitive and collaborative relationship between banks and e-commerce players?
Speaker: Not sure if you want, you have anything else to add given your earlier sharing.
Speaker: Sure, no, I do feel like it's more partnership rather than competition because if you look at the roles each of us can play in supporting the overall e-commerce business model, right?
Speaker: Essentially the platform, they have a better infrastructure to support transparency of the data, data exchange, connecting better to consumers.
Speaker: But from a banking side, we provide better, more robust infrastructure for settlements, for funds exchange,
Speaker: provide the proper reporting for not only business needs, but also compliance needs.
Speaker: So I do understand sometimes they're overlapping in this sort of different roles, but fundamentally, I think we're servicing different needs in this ecosystem.
Speaker: Thanks.
Speaker: Thanks, Louis.
Speaker: And we got our second question, and this is directed to Simon.
Speaker: What would you say about the change of your supply chain strategies, if any, since COVID-19?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Actually, there was a big change.
Speaker: Before COVID-19, we couldn't imagine that over the night, you cannot find, you cannot buy rice, the grocery items like the toilet rolls online because they are the must-have of the consumers.
Speaker: And we usually stock a lot of infantry in the warehouse.
Speaker: But COVID-19 changed everything.
Speaker: And we see a big boost to certain categories, especially the grocery item.
Speaker: So actually, we have done some changes with our supply chain partners.
Speaker: For example, before COVID-19, we usually just issued the purchase order once or two times per week.
Speaker: And they...
Speaker: stop in regularly, but now we change the model.
Speaker: We just receive all the orders from the customer first, and then we will, it's like a pre-order model.
Speaker: We receive all the orders, and then we send the orders to our supply chain partners, and they deliver
Speaker: the inventory to our warehouse every day so that we make sure that the supply is enough to cater for the demand.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Thanks.
Speaker: Thanks, Simon.
Speaker: And another question we have is directed to Alex.
Speaker: So how do you view the e-commerce value proposition towards sustainability and society benefits?
Speaker: It's very...
Speaker: It's a very good question.
Speaker: It's very important.
Speaker: It's very important because the amount of paper, if you will, right, that really kind of is moved across the chain, the amount of, what,
Speaker: The carbon footprint, frankly, of e-commerce operation is significantly higher.
Speaker: The type of products that are also being shipped and used is also different.
Speaker: And what you see is Alibaba is, for example, driving towards that.
Speaker: They're working with companies like L'Oreal that use a lot of, you know, packaging.
Speaker: They use a lot of products.
Speaker: you know, material basically that needs to be transported that is not necessary that both increase bulky, leads to bulky kind of shipments, but also, you know, the manufacturing and the packaging process itself.
Speaker: And they're working together to basically really kind of reinvent and innovate the way that will be shipping in the future to ensure sustainability.
Speaker: And you see that really happening across the board.
Speaker: It has very different level of priorities, I would say, in different countries.
Speaker: and different markets.
Speaker: But it's clear that the brands and specifically the foreign brands are very wary about that.
Speaker: And as a result are making a deliberate decision and partnerships with their platforms to make sure that they reduce the carbon footprint that they use.
Speaker: Great.
Speaker: Thanks.
Speaker: Thanks, Alex.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I guess we have time for maybe one final question and that's to Matthew.
Speaker: How do you see the efforts of banks have been making in coping with the fast development of the digital era?
Speaker: Thanks, Florence.
Speaker: So, you know, I actually started my job from a bank and then I've been working with many good banking partners around the world.
Speaker: If you ask me the same question five years ago, I have to say, you know, the banks were slow.
Speaker: But if you ask me today, what I've seen is, you know, banks have been investing heavily in order to digitize and digitize the process.
Speaker: And it is not only digitizing the process, but
Speaker: using technologies to upgrade the infrastructure, you know, to serve a, I would say, let's say some segments that were traditionally harder to serve.
Speaker: For example, yeah, I take, again, I want to take examples of SMEs.
Speaker: When, let's say banks assess SME credits, probably the traditional methods may not be sufficient, especially when you talk about SME who is in the cross-border e-commerce area,
Speaker: Probably the balance sheet doesn't look as nice as they should be.
Speaker: But then they have large flows, you know, large sales.
Speaker: And then they're stable on, you know, e-commerce platforms.
Speaker: So there are new approaches, new mindsets and new technologies coming into such assessments.
Speaker: And today I also feel that banks are being more and more open to work in partnership with tech companies.
Speaker: This is a very healthy relationship where banks do more on the banking side with a strong balance sheet and risk management.
Speaker: And then tech companies then come into play to do more enablement and partners.
Speaker: So this is also a good model that we see in the banks.
Speaker: And then this keeps evolving.
Speaker: You think about the next five years.
Speaker: Yeah, five years later, you've asked me the same question.
Speaker: It's probably to another level.
Speaker: So let's keep this trend going and let's keep this good partnership relationship.
Speaker: Thanks.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: Thank you, Matthew.
Speaker: Certainly looking forward to more collaboration with your good group.
Speaker: Okay, so due to time constraints, I'm afraid we can't answer all the questions that is posted today.
Speaker: So anyone else has any further questions, please do direct them to us as your banker.
Speaker: So I think today has been a great discussion, touching on many, many different expects.
Speaker: But I think one key takeaway I have is that customer centricity, right, has always been the key driver behind every step of development.
Speaker: And it remains the case, you know, for e-commerce as well.
Speaker: So maybe digitalization of the traditional operating model, transformation with more advanced technology, or even collaboration amongst various ecosystem players, right?
Speaker: So we all see that supply chain is no longer linear.
Speaker: In fact, we are moving into more complex ecosystem and banks like HSBC will have greater role to play, right?
Speaker: In order to help you guys handle and manage all these pain points.
Speaker: So HSBC with our unrivaled international footprint and digital capabilities, we are very confident that we will work with every one of our partners to ride through this tide
Speaker: and to rise to new heights.
Speaker: Okay, so with that, together we thrive.
Speaker: Thank you very much.
Speaker: Thank you everyone very much for your time.
Speaker: We hope that you'll find this session as insightful as we all did.
Speaker: Thank you for listening today.
Speaker: This has been HSBC Global Viewpoint Banking and Markets.
Speaker: For more information about anything you heard in this podcast, or to learn about HSBC's global services and offerings, please visit gbm.hsbc.com.
