The Bank of New York (BoNY) has been appointed by the Bank of Overseas Chinese (BOOC) to service its letter of credit processing, providing further evidence that technologically savvy financial institutions are intent on winning outsourcing business from less well tooled banks.

Global networks

BoNY already has a formidable reputation for winning trust and custody worldwide business on the back of its highly developed technologies and is apparently well placed to provide global trade services. It has 28 non-US branch and representative offices in 25 countries and securities servicing in more than 100 markets. The bank has key service centres in London, Brussels, and Singapore and provides trust and custody services through an affiliate bank in Luxembourg.

Bank of Overseas Chinese (BOOC), founded 40 years ago, is a publicly listed institution based in Taipei, Taiwan. It operates 58 branches in Taiwan and employs around 2,000 staff. As well as trade finance and foreign exchange operations , the bank offers a full range of retail and business banking products to the Taiwanese market.

Correspondent support

Kenneth Lopian, senior vice president, and BoNY's Asia-Pacific, described the BOOC deal as "further evidence of the bank's commitment to trade processing in support of our correspondent clients on a global basis."

Competitors of BoNY in the provision of outsourced trade services include Boston-based State Street which is also a specialist in the trust and custody sectors and Proponix, founded by American Management Systems and three financial institutions, Australia and New Zealand Banking Group, Barclays and Bank of Montreal.

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