2009 was a year of growth for global custodians in Asia, at least for the big players. New mandates were announced across the region and some of the largest Western firms expanded their presence in key markets.
A result of 2008's credit crunch was the confirmation that global custody is a scale business with razor-thin margins. Eddy Rhemrev, Asia-Pacific chief executive of IT and business services firm Logica, highlighted this in an interview last year when he said in no uncertain terms that "volume and scale are the key words for transaction banking". Global custody ...