Madeleine Senior of Standard Chartered speak with SFT

Standard Chartered’s Madeleine Senior speaks about her ambitions for the bank’s Financing and Securities Services division and the importance of sustainability, diversity and inclusion in shaping its objectives

Madeleine Senior joined Standard Chartered in June 2019 as regional head of financing and securities services (FSS) for the Americas and Europe and is based in London. Her industry career spans more than 27 years, during which she has accumulated extensive management and sales experience and has sat on a number of asset management, fund administration and securities services industry boards. 

Before accepting this position, she was based in Australia as the regional managing director of a global custodian, and previously held senior management positions covering Nordic markets, where she opened a new office in Sweden, and as head of EMEA sales covering nearly 30 locations.

As a qualified English teacher she already had an established career prior to banking, however, and continues to put her communication and educational skills to use as a speaker and passionate supporter of Women in Leadership and diversity council events. 

With this variegated background, SFT was keen to learn how this multi-jurisdictional, multi-disciplinary expertise led to a position at Standard Chartered and how this would be applied to define future strategy within its FSS division.

On joining Standard Chartered, Senior says that she was particularly attracted to the organisation’s market network and culture, along with the difference that the bank aims to make in countries in which it is active.

“Over the next 12 to 24 months, I expect to see FSS reinforcing its position and influence as a market leader across the 59 markets in which we operate today, supporting clients’ growth ambitions through our digital solutions, market insights and domain expertise,” she says. 

At the same time, she believes it is important that Standard Chartered’s business, and its clients’ business activities, “grow well”, prioritising diversity and inclusion, with environment and social considerations sitting at the heart of the way that it thinks, acts and interacts — whether that is dealing with clients, partner organisations, financial regulators or the wider market. 

Coming together

The financing and securities services business goes beyond securities services to include prime brokerage and agency securities lending. But why did the bank take the decision to combine these business units? And what service benefits does this offer customers?

“Our clients want us to operate as one bank, and we recognised that we could build on the synergies between these businesses to become more efficient and interconnected internally and to offer solutions to clients across these product areas,” responds Senior. 

Expanding on this point, she explains that, over recent years, the organisation had been asked repeatedly by its securities services clients whether it would consider extending its service portfolio to securities lending. 

Having already allocated significant investment to digitisation initiatives, to regulatory compliance projects and to delivering improvements in the client experience, however, the bank was keen to keep its attention focused on these ongoing client commitments. 

“We therefore adopted a pragmatic strategy, developing a transparent and governance-led approach to securities lending at scale and at pace that would also enable clients to meet their Environmental Social and Governance (ESG) objectives,” she says.

To balance these multiple priorities, Standard Chartered chose to bring new specialist expertise into its FSS team, providing the advisory services, the depth of market insight, the domain knowledge and the relationship management skills that its clients expect from the organisation. 

Subsequently, after further market assessment, it appointed eSecLending as its front-to-back partner for securities lending services. “This decision was heavily influenced by eSecLending’s proven track record,” adds Senior. “By combining our relative strengths, we have been able to launch an end-to-end, segregated and fully indemnified securities lending programme that is customised to each client’s requirements.”

Success stories

Reflecting on recent business performance, Senior observes that Standard Chartered has witnessed significant growth across its FSS activities. “The prime brokerage business has grown exponentially and so too has the agency securities lending franchise, where we recently appointed a global head to focus on the expansion and development of this exciting area.”

Its custody business has experienced substantial wins across all of the markets in which it operates and is now in the top three providers by assets under custody and clearing volumes in Taiwan, Kenya, Singapore, UAE and a number of other markets. 

Alongside these successes, Senior believes it is a priority for the organisation to work in partnership with key agencies (with government, other financial institutions and corporates) to fulfil the UN Sustainable Development Goals, which provide a framework for sustainability efforts for national governments and multilateral agencies. 

Senior is adamant that financial institutions have an important role to play in promoting economic growth that is environmentally and socially sustainable and that encourages delivery of a broader set of development goals. 

For example, in October 2018, Standard Chartered and the World Bank sold the world’s first sovereign blue bond for the Republic of Seychelles to help protect marine areas. It also brought together a coalition of banks to form the Illegal Wildlife Trade Financial Taskforce, which is working to mobilise the global financial system against this catastrophic environmental, social and financial crime. 

Data and digitisation

It is evident from FSS’ product documentation that technology innovation is at the forefront of the division’s plans for business development. This identifies opportunities to deliver “customised programmes to scale through automation and digitalisation, particularly through harnessing artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML)”. It also refers to development potential created by distributed ledger technology (DLT).

“For Standard Chartered, data and digitisation are transforming the industry by creating new opportunities to drive end-to-end efficient processing, greater control and transparency, more informed decisions and, ultimately, a better experience for clients,” says Senior. 

While some organisations are using automation and digitisation to standardise their service provision, Senior indicates that Standard Chartered is harnessing data and digital innovation to make its solutions and market insights accessible to a wider group of clients across its market footprint. “The aim is to create a consistent global experience while still accommodating market, regulatory and cultural nuances,” she says. 

AI and ML are important to delivering this goal, helping the organisation to digitise and automate manual processes, which is often a particular challenge in emerging markets, and to provide pre-settlement and post-settlement data analytics. 

“These technologies are also contributing to our ‘Here for Good’ ambitions, by providing greater insights across supply chain ecosystems, and assessing and evaluating ESG metrics in a consistent way,” she says.

In parallel, Standard Chartered continues to invest in DLT solutions within its own technology portfolio and in partnership with third parties. In September 2020, it announced the first cross-border live transaction on Trusple, a digital international trade and financial service platform based on AntChain (Ant Group’s blockchain-based technology solution), which is integrated with the bank’s Straight2Bank digital banking platform. 

In December 2020, its innovation and ventures unit, SC Ventures, announced an agreement with Northern Trust to launch Zodia Custody, aiming to combine the traditional custody expertise of a bank with the agility of a fintech company to provide institutional investors with custody solutions for cryptocurrency assets. 

In the past few weeks, it has also unveiled a joint venture between SC Ventures and BC Group, a Hong Kong-based digital asset firm which manages the crypto exchange OSL. This will provide traders with access to cryptocurrencies and other digital assets and will, it believes, position it as a market leader and the only bank among the major institutional crypto exchanges. 

Future direction

Reflecting on opportunities for future expansion, Madeleine Senior observes that there has been considerable interest in Standard Chartered’s agency securities lending solution in developed markets where securities lending is well-established, including Asian markets such as Singapore and Hong Kong, and in emerging markets. 

“Clients are keen to leverage our presence, solutions and insights across our footprint in Asia, Africa and the Middle East to explore new opportunities,” she says. “Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and China are among the markets where we anticipate significant growth in securities lending.” 

In China, for example, Standard Chartered was one of the first foreign banks to be awarded a licence to provide services for Qualified Foreign Institutional Investors (QFII), as well as QFII “B” Shares cash clearing services, interbank bond market settlement agent services, master custody services for trust and insurance companies, and custody and clearing services. 

Standard Chartered is also experiencing continued cross-border investment interest in India, both via foreign portfolio investments (FPI) and foreign direct investments (FDI). “US investor clients, in particular, are keen to access FPI via National Stock Exchange of India (NSE) listed futures, options and to access securities lending activity there. Others prefer the FDI route into infrastructure, real estate or distressed debt,” says Senior.

“As the regulatory environment in China and other markets in Asia, Africa and the Middle East continues to evolve, we anticipate that a growing number of institutional investors and asset managers will seek to partner with Standard Chartered, recognising our unique ability to provide financing and securities services across the markets in which our clients invest,” concludes Senior.

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