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Chile
Citi
“Very slowly answers,” writes a major client. “Openings always
take more time than expected. We need always to chase for
answers.” The average scores, especially for account manage-
ment and relationship management, indicate their experience
is not an isolated one. In only one service area do they fall the
right side of being less than good. The traditional strengths of
the bank as a provider of efficient settlement services and short-
term credit to broker-dealers are, nevertheless, as evident in
Santiago as they are elsewhere.
The bank will be concerned by the slippage on the human side
of the business, where the scoring of client service and rela-
tionship management suggests that slow responses to queries
are evidently not the only challenge Citi Santiago clients must
overcome. That said, there is no visible concern about the
commitment of Citi to the market. The American bank has a
long history and a sizeable presence in Chile, where it merged
its local assets with the much larger balance sheet of Banco de
Chile back in 2007-08.
Banco Santander Chile
The Spanish bank is the biggest in Chile in terms of both assets
and customers. This is not an especially large market for the
bank as a whole in terms of customers, revenues or profits, but
the bank is winning admirers here. As in 2017, Santander is the
star performer in the direct custody and clearing industry in
Chile. Unfortunately, the bank did not attract enough responses
to maintain a rating here this year, but the scores it received
from those clients that did respond are certainly impressive.
They outpace the local benchmarks in every service area and fall
short of the global equivalents in only two areas – and even then,
by narrow margins. That said, the scores imply there is work
to do in both the banking and the client services. A large and
much-admired retail presence in the country, coupled with a
sizeable and well-performing corporate loan book, underwrites
the commitment of Santander to servicing inbound capital.
Itaú Corpbanca
The unadorned assessment of an important client (“overall
good service provided”) serves as an accurate summation of the
average scores, if not the particular ones. There are not enough
responses to secure a rating, and the bank has lost some of the
upward momentum evident in 2017, but those clients that have
responded are clear about what they like most. Itaú Corpbanca,
which emerged from the 2014 merger between Banco Itaú Chile
and Corp Group, continues to win plaudits for client service and
relationship management.
There is nothing much wrong with the returns in the core
clearing and custody services either. Where the performance
falters somewhat is in the banking and value-added services,
but it would be wrong to draw sweeping conclusions from such
a modest data set. There is no visible anxiety about the commit-
ment and creditworthiness of the bank. Though Itaú Corpbanca
has no controlling shareholder, it is one of the four biggest banks
in the country and has a reassuringly large retail presence.
WEIGHTED AVERAGE SCORES
Citi
Banco Santander Chile
Itaú Corpbanca
Market Average Global Average
Share of validated responses (%) 55% 27% 18% Relationship management 3.62 n/a n/a 4.44 5.30
Client service 4.94 n/a n/a 5.32 5.56
Account management 4.72 n/a n/a 5.05 5.14
Asset safety 4.06 n/a n/a 4.35 4.60
Risk management 4.29 n/a n/a 4.84 5.50
Liquidity management 4.20 n/a n/a 4.57 5.14
Regulation and compliance 4.70 n/a n/a 4.54 4.84
Innovation 4.00 n/a n/a 4.33 4.75
Asset servicing 4.93 n/a n/a 5.16 5.52
Pricing 3.69 n/a n/a 4.54 5.28
Technology 4.73 n/a n/a 4.94 5.41
Cash management and FX 5.05 n/a n/a 5.16 5.42
Total 4.39 n/a n/a 4.79 5.23
Winter 2018
globalcustodian.com
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