Asia’s best investment banks

The Euromoney MarketMap: Asia’s best investment banks evaluates how leading regional and international institutions are performing across advisory, execution and client impact in a rapidly evolving capital markets environment. For this report, Asia ex-Japan analysis has focused on the following countries, regions and territories: China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines, Vietnam, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

The analysis focuses on the Asia ex-Japan rather than pan-Asia or Apac to ensure comparability across institutions operating and disclosing on activity in a broadly similar range of markets. Banks in Japan and Asia-Pacific markets such as Australia are typically analysed separately, given their distinct market structures, regulatory frameworks and economic drivers.

Our assessment covers banks active in Asia ex-Japan investment banking during 2024-25, combining four sources of evidence:

• Quantitative data – league table data in selected metrics.

• Qualitative data – from shortlisted banks detailing strategic initiatives, client impact and innovation.

• Structured interviews – with senior executives including heads of investment banking, capital markets and coverage.

• Fact-finding trips – trips conducted by Euromoney’s team where our team members meet with a broad range of industry actors and stakeholders

Each institution is scored against six criteria, within four thematic pillars, which capture the capabilities needed to lead in today’s capital markets:

Market performance

1. Revenue performance and wallet share: year-on-year revenue, fee and wallet share growth across products and geographies.
2. Deal activity: value and volume of M&A, ECM and DCM/sukuk transactions.

Execution strength

3. Execution capacity upgrades: agility and cross-border coordination in deal processes.

Client impact

4. Client outcomes and innovation in transactions.
5. Investment in technology, capital and talent to improve client experience.

Strategic investment

6. Geographic or product expansion broadening client options.

Scores are assigned on a 0-10 scale for each criterion based on quantitative metrics, qualitative data and analyst judgement following structured interviews.

Based on overall performance, banks are placed into three tiers:

Leading – institutions showing strength across all pillars and consistently delivering superior revenue and execution results.

Outstanding – banks excelling in specific areas, products or geographies.

Distinguished – credible performers with strong growth stories or a specialist edge.

Integrated models with built-in resilience

Across Asia ex-Japan, what ultimately characterised the trough period before the turnaround wasn’t simply the harshness of the environment but how unevenly different markets and product types performed. While macro volatility, fractured issuance windows and inconsistent liquidity weighed on all participants, the banks that pulled ahead were those that had the deepest client relationships and integrated platforms that enabled them to execute rapidly when and where clients required. The leaders distinguished themselves not by defensive posture but by converting integrated platform maturity into tangible, measurable throughput.

Throughout the region, the data shows that these cross-product and function models operated as a protective shield through lean periods and also acted as an accelerant as markets began to reopen. Institutions that had spent years consolidating systems, unifying product platforms and deepening specialist benches found themselves with the deepest client relationships and market knowledge. This meant that they were able to deliver across cycles and, when conditions tightened, to scale capacity quickly when the opportunity set expanded.

UBS offers the clearest demonstration of this, by completing its full integration of Credit Suisse and migrating all Asian markets onto a unified appraisal platform and coverage model. Not only that, but it put in place measures, incentives and infrastructure that effectively integrate its investment and private bank platforms. This consolidation supported both +26% year-on-year regional increase revenue in 2024 and an exceptional +71% year-on-year increase in 1Q25, underscoring the compounding effect of early structural investment. This is especially so in 2024’s market environment, where China – the largest single-market constituent – saw fees down 18% year-on-year and all asset classes apart from bonds saw negative fee growth.

Morgan Stanley has a different but similarly effective approach. Its fully integrated banking structure, spanning M&A, ECM, DCM, equity linked and solutions, enables the firm to sustain execution volumes even as issuance windows narrow. Its willingness to take risk – for example underwriting major block trades such as the $3.6 billion JD.com sell down – also signals conviction in its platform and distribution channels.

Across the region, we observe integrated models result in a bank’s ability to maintain throughput, sustain client confidence and convert platform investments into tangible execution outcomes

Agility: Capturing opportunity in narrow windows

If integrated platforms are the foundation of resilience, it is not the only attribute require to succeed. In volatile markets, leading banks also need the agility to convert limited issuance windows into results. Banks capable of pivoting instantly across products, formats and markets, and organisations whose internal architecture allows for seamless movement between ECM, DCM, equity linked, loans, private credit and structured solutions, are the ones being rewarded in the current market.

Morgan Stanley embodies agility by using proactive underwriting to generate its own windows. The firm frequently deploys sole underwritten structures, across blocks, convertibles and equity raises, to catalyse liquidity when markets are otherwise inactive. This approach reduces dependency on market conditions and gives issuers certainty rarely available in volatile periods. The bank has also strengthened local execution benches, particularly in Taiwan and Korea, resolving bottlenecks that previously slowed responses to market shifts. 

Agility at Citi has been driven by operational discipline and dynamic resource allocation. The bank shifts banker capacity toward higher activity markets while reducing focus in slower markets, ensuring its coverage intensity matches opportunities.

DBS has redesigned its issuer investor engagement model to improve agility. Its Pulse of Asia platform integrates equity and fixed income investor coverage, allowing issuers to meet both pools simultaneously and shorten marketing cycles. Such integrated investor dialogues mean deals can flex between formats – equity, equity linked, bond or private solutions – depending on market receptivity, a structural enabler of agility. 

Standard Chartered has enhanced agility through its strengthened originate to distribute model, alongside new product structures such as multi tranche RMB-CNH-USD solutions and synthetic currency frameworks. Its ability to toggle between public and private credit markets gives issuers alternatives when public markets are shut. 

In India, Axis Capital’s execution machinery enables the franchise to deliver rapid results for clients, exemplified by it delivering the fastest follow-on public offer (FPO) closure on record (Vodafone Idea, 53 days). This reflects institutional processes that allow rapid regulatory responses and efficient deal sequencing.

CIMB also demonstrates agility by integrating loan syndication with its debt markets platform, enabling rapid pivots between sukuk, bonds, structured financing and loans. 

In each case, agility has arisen from a blend of platform integration, decision making discipline and the institutionalisation of cross product flexibility. Winners across the region flex franchise diversity to focus where deal flow is, maintaining client relationships and continuing track records of execution excellence through leaner periods. Also, banks that can shift execution format quickly and guide clients between products prove to be far better positioned to maximise wallet share and execution volume.

Cross-border distribution and structuring capabilities

The ability to access capital and structure deals across borders and currencies has become a pre-requisite for Leading investment banks in Asia. Banks with global connectivity, multi-market licensing, sophisticated transaction engineering and increasingly multi-currency strength are able to bring offshore liquidity into Asia and within Asia, connecting issuers with US, European, Middle Eastern and Hong Kong/China capital pools.

HSBC exemplifies cross-border and cross-currency abilities, scaling distribution across CNH, HKD, SGD and INR, markets that historically lacked depth but have since become core liquidity pools for regional and sovereign issuers. The bank can point to its delivery of the world’s first multi-currency digital bond (HKSAR: HKD/CNH/USD/EUR), executed on its distributed ledger technology (DLT)-enabled Orion platform, as evidence of its innovation leadership in this space. Deutsche Bank’s execution for AirTrunk coordinating financing facilities across five jurisdictions is also a leading example of cross-border structuring. 

Within China’s capital ecosystem, CICC and CITIC Securities have matured into cross-border super-connectors for Chinese entities, facilitating increasingly complex deals on the buy and sell side. CICC’s unified ECM team operates seamlessly across A-share, Hong Kong and US listings, enabling issuers to pivot when regulatory or market conditions shift. The bank also undertakes roles that require deep operational capability, such as being the sole stabilisation and settlement agent for Hong Kong IPOs under the T+2 fast interface for new issuance (FINI) regime.

CITIC Securities has strengthened both its onshore and offshore DCM franchises. Its participation as joint global coordinator in all five of the largest offshore Chinese corporate bond deals in 2024 underscored the bank’s reach and structuring sophistication.

Cross-border execution is equally visible among regional houses. CIMB navigates complex sukuk-plus-bond frameworks and Kotak Mahindra delivers cross-border regulatory compliance on structured financings. All of these demonstrate that cross-border sophistication has become a baseline requirement for competitive execution leadership across Asia.

The lean and volatile periods since 2021 forced banks to adapt. Institutions that built resilient, integrated platforms developed cross product and market agility, and strengthened their cross border capital, were shaping the very attributes that would propel them forward as conditions improved.

When markets improved, the banks that had invested early emerged with the strongest client relationships, the deepest market knowledge and the most reliable track records. They were the most capable of sourcing liquidity across currencies, jurisdictions and product types. In a rising but still volatile environment, these capabilities are defining sector leadership.

Structuring innovation as a competitive differentiator

The franchises that consistently deliver are seamlessly choreographing structuring, risk management and execution rather than dealing with them as sequential workstreams. That discipline showed up most clearly in repeatable equity linked ‘blueprints’ aligned to real investor demand and issuer constraints, enabling decisive action in short, volatile windows.

Morgan Stanley exemplified this approach through its work on Zijin Mining’s first ever concurrent Apac convertible plus equity follow on, Ping An’s large Reg S only convertible with embedded delta placement, and Alibaba’s landmark technology convertible. Each deal was conceived and executed as one integrated design with risk support embedded from the outset, reducing conditionality, compressing timing and lifting the probability of clearing size at acceptable economics. 

Citi advanced its own structuring frontier with combinations of convertibles, buybacks and capped calls designed to improve the cost of capital over time, as seen in Alibaba’s multi-year package. Its leadership in Taiwan’s equity-plus-convertible formats set new benchmarks for conversion premiums and yields, creating replicable precedents for founder and sponsor monetisations. In practical terms, these blueprints did more than optimise price – they created credible playbooks that CFOs could reuse for subsequent tranches or adjacent assets without re learning investor tolerances each time. Issuers could reduce mid process re underwriting risk and avoid the friction that typically widens spreads or forces downsizes when markets wobble. 

When IPO windows narrowed, UBS demonstrated that liquidity could be manufactured rather than discovered, leaning into private markets, continuation funds, minority private credit and structured equity, to unlock proceeds at scale. Its hybrid private credit for Yinson showed how sponsors could sidestep public-market timing risk while still accessing institutional balance sheets. 

Deutsche Bank differentiated by re engineering liability stacks and fund financing. Apac’s first NAV financing and umbrella capital call lines gave sponsors callable, multi-purpose liquidity that did not depend on open-market windows, while a Southeast Asian high yield project bond with reserve accounts and cash sweeps aligned structure to investor risk appetite. This matters because it converts episodic access to markets into programmable liquidity: treasury teams gain the option to scale gradually, refinance opportunistically and smooth cash cycles – advantages that are material when cross asset volatility widens. 

Asia-based banks innovated on structuring to deliver for clients as well. CICC delivered first-in-market formats across equity and fixed income, including digitally native corporate bonds and specialist technology listings, showing how policy alignment and domestic distribution networks can expand investor reach. CIMB achieved similar outcomes in Islamic and sustainability-linked markets, integrating hybrid features and KPI frameworks into sukuk and perpetual securities. Maybank paired underwriting discipline with structural innovation, including the first Islamic business trust IPO, compressing execution risk for issuers that prioritised certainty over optionality.

Across Asia ex-Japan’s best banks, two structing patterns emerged in 2024. First, the normalisation of ‘package solutions’ combining convertibles, buybacks, blocks and embedded hedging, enabling issuers to move decisively in narrow windows. Second, banks’ abilities to translate private market needs into public market formats, from continuation structures to pre-hedged exits, reducing basis risk between exit strategies and market capacity.

Structuring innovation in 2024 wasn’t limited to instruments. Leading banks engineered governance, FX and regulatory constraints into executable transaction pathways. Banks that could integrate advisory with financing were consistently the ones able to unlock the most complex, multi jurisdictional situations. Deutsche Bank’s cross border work for SK bioscience’s acquisition of IDT Biologika and its refinancing pathway for J&T Express illustrated how governance requirements, FX exposures and stakeholder dynamics can be translated into a coherent liquidity route rather than treated as separate sources of risk. DBS showed a similar capability in its work on the Guotai Junan Securities-Haitong Securities mega merger, where shareholder considerations, regulatory engagement and minority holder alignment were built directly into the structuring timeline.

Domestic currency solutions delivered at scale

FX volatility and cross-market rate differentials reshaped issuance choices in 2024, pulling treasurers toward structures that matched revenue currency or eliminated swap slippage. HSBC’s joint book, multi-currency model became an important differentiator, combining USD and local currency tranches in a single execution to derisk FX exposure while preserving tenor for the Hong Kong Monetary Authority and the Hong Kong government. Its ability to execute consistently on large scale repeated CNH transactions for Temasek also show its ability to execute issuances across a large range of currencies, depending on issuer situation to achieve cost savings. HBSC showed unparalleled issuance currency breadth in 2024 in Asian DCM, successfully completing transactions across seven currencies.

Standard Chartered took a different angle on the same problem via blended local currency, CNH and USD frameworks to address onshore use of proceeds constraints in China. Its synthetic local currency loans, including synthetic KRW, allowed borrowers to match liability currency to cash flow even with offshore funding pools, providing a degree of insulation as basis volatility widened.

CICC, BOCI and others leveraged dim sum, panda and ESG-linked corridors to broaden investor rosters. CICC’s digitally native corporate bond and sustainability-linked panda formats reduced friction for international buyers while preserving domestic regulatory and tax advantages. BOCI reopened RMB markets with large green dim sum series for Chinese SOEs at historically low coupons, demonstrating how policy alignment and deep domestic placement can compress spreads relative to USD benchmarks during risk-off periods.

In Southeast Asia, local currency frameworks increasingly incorporated ESG and hybrid features. CIMB’s sustainability-linked sukuk, Malaysia Rail Link’s SDG sukuk, and revolving ABS solutions reflected an emphasis on broadening investor bases while keeping issuers insulated from hard currency volatility. Maybank and CIMB used multi KPI structures and hybrid perpetuals to help issuers compress spreads even as global rates rose.

The practical result for clients of Asia’s best banks being able to deliver local currency solutions at scale was greater control over tenor, size and all-in economics. Banks that could directly anchor CNH, MYR or INR demand, or create synthetic exposure from USD, produced less execution drift and more predictable pricing outcomes. We expect local currency issuances growth to be a key theme in Asia as we move into the second half of the 2020s, where global growth will continue to be weighted towards the eastern hemisphere, with banks such as HSBC – who are already showing leadership in this area – set to benefit.

Proximity-driven advisory models

Another key theme was that the highest throughput franchises were also those – who through their integrated structures and teams, and geographic reach – were able to stay closest to their clients and key stakeholders such as regulators, able to calibrate go/no go decisions quickly and to activate cross product solutions without re assembling teams. UBS’s No.1 Asia M&A standing was a function of both breadth and consistency. The Guotai Junan–Haitong merger in Hong Kong, landmark transactions in Southeast Asia and repeated mandates in South Korea all stemmed from long standing board level trust built on track records of execution excellence and impeccable relationship management cross the whole franchise. The depth of relationship served to shorten decision cycles and increase the credibility of guidance to investors, especially for complex or politically sensitive transactions.

Morgan Stanley’s ability to manufacture issuance windows, including IPOs executed immediately after Korea’s Liberation Day holiday and a sequence of high impact convertibles, was enabled by pre-wired investor channels and embedded hedging and risk-solution capabilities. Client proximity both on the buy and sell side in this context meant not just coverage intensity but readiness to activate liquidity at moments when volatility discouraged peers.

Citi activity in this area emphasised early anchor formation with sovereign wealth and pension funds. Its Lenovo private convertible with warrants was carefully engineered around shareholder and regulatory constraints. This is proximity as mediation: translating issuer intent, market practice and regulatory precedent into a structure that clears and holds in the aftermarket. For CFOs, the implication is to demand advisory that is comfortable operating at the intersection of policy and practice, not just price discovery.

Deutsche Bank’s strength in proximity often emerged in tightly constrained ecosystems. Its dominance in Indonesian healthcare M&A and its role in four of Australia’s five largest M&A events revealed how repeat mandates stemmed from multi-year sector work. Its entry into Mongolia’s sovereign and fixed income issuance channels showed that proximity can also take the form of long-term strategic engagement, opening markets rather than merely participating in them.

Axis Capital’s high hit rate on large India mandates, paired with disciplined avoidance of deals that later underperformed, showed how proximity can function as issuer service and investor protection discipline. For sponsors, these examples argue for partner selection based on throughput quality, not just league table share. Banks that decline mis sized or mis timed risk protect one’s brand equity with anchors that will be needed again.

Investments in digital platforms

Across Asia, the banks that invested early in digital infrastructure were the ones most able to deliver improved execution certainty for clients during volatile times. Although many of these platforms are still evolving, their impact is already visible in faster preparation cycles, smoother regulatory navigation, stronger investor mobilisation and better capture of fleeting market windows.

Deutsche Bank illustrates a clear translation of digital investment into measurable client benefit. Its fully integrated onshore-offshore DCM platform in China, spanning registration, documentation, issuer advisory, settlement and secondary market support, means issuers face fewer process hand offs, shorter turnaround times and more reliable regulatory progression. This unified platform underpinned Deutsche’s 48 onshore transactions and top ranking in panda and CNY issuance, demonstrating how a front to back digital architecture converts operational scale into execution certainty for clients. The same discipline carried into ECM, where digital workflows and automated syndicate coordination enabled Deutsche to handle five ultra rapid follow on and convertible transactions early in 2025, giving issuers credible access to tight windows that competitors struggled to meet. 

For Morgan Stanley, the client advantage came from compressing preparation timelines and improving pre deal quality. Its India Global Centres support automated research summarisation, AI generated pitch ideas and integrated internal search, materially reducing the time needed to prepare pitches, screenings and execution materials – critical in markets where issuer readiness determines whether a window can be captured at all. The bank’s exploration of blockchain and tokenised settlement also sets the groundwork for faster, lower risk cross market clearing paths, a shift that will increasingly benefit issuers operating across multiple regulatory regimes. 

Citi focused its digital investment on enhancing the precision of distribution and improving investor engagement efficiency. Its data driven investor mapping and refined roadshow analytics enabled issuers to allocate management time to the highest probability anchor pockets, improving book depth and pricing outcomes. Citi’s integrated derivatives and risk engines improved the speed and accuracy of pricing for capped calls, equity linked overlays and other structured components, reducing valuation drift and tightening the link between market conditions and final terms. Its proprietary pitching and idea generation platform enabled the bank to further improved pitch quality through enhanced modelling and scenario visualisation, enabling clients to make more informed strategic and IPO decisions. 

UBS delivered client side benefits by integrating digital infrastructure directly into its private bank and investment bank platforms. This configuration allows issuers to tap ultra-high-net-worth (UHNW) and wealth management demand alongside institutional pools in a single distribution workflow, strengthening book stability, improving price discovery and reducing execution risk, particularly for placements that rely on relationship driven long only anchors.

A potent example of HSBC’s digital technology differentiation came from investing in technology infrastructure, rather than incremental tools. HSBC Orion, a DLT platform embedded in the Hong Kong Monetary Authority’s (HKMA) Central Moneymarkets Unit (CMU) and interoperable with Euroclear and Clearstream, represents for HSBC a capex intensive, hard to replicate issuance rail. It delivered the world’s first multi currency, digitally native green bond for the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Government in 2024, proving tokenised issuance can operate at production scale across HKD, RMB, USD and EUR. As digital formats scale, Orion and infrastructure like it will become a structural competitive advantage in DCM and structured primary markets, anchoring advisory and structuring led mandates where banks such as HSBC already lead.

CICC’s digital finance capabilities in DCM supported digitally native bond issuance and allowed issuers to navigate cross border structures such as Southbound Bond Connect with fewer delays and clearer regulatory pathways, making for a smoother customer experience.

In markets, Huatai International and DBS highlighted rapid advances in execution technology that can feed directly into improved primary market outcomes. Huatai’s multi-year buildout in AI, algorithmic execution, digital wealth platforms and OTC pricing engines has cut latency and improved real-time price clarity, giving clients faster order taking and tighter, more reliable pricing signals. DBS has pushed the same frontier by modernising its OMS, expanding algo/DMA connectivity and widening venue access, allowing buy-side desks to execute with greater transparency and materially lower slippage.

It is well understood that houses with superior market execution capabilities deliver better outcomes for primary market issuers. What is changing, however, is the magnitude of that advantage. Technology is now able to widen the gap, with banks investing in advanced execution platforms, real time analytics and AI enhanced liquidity tools translating traditional secondary market strengths into materially stronger primary market results. In today’s environment, execution technology is no longer a marginal enhancer – it can be a competitive differentiator.

Across these many initiatives, the signal is unmistakable: digital investment for leading banks now sits at the centre of client outcomes. The banks  that moved early, and continue to invest with discipline, are redefining what good execution looks like across Asia: faster preparation, cleaner regulatory pathways, higher precision investor engagement and greater certainty in volatile windows.

There is also a deeper shift occurring in the competitive landscape. Leading banks are using technology to change the benchmark for what is possible, raising client expectations with every cycle. Their senior talent is now armed with powerful tools, whose potency improves with every deal and every additional datapoint. In this environment, weaker benches can no longer rely on grit, hustle or incremental improvements to stay relevant. The technology gap increasingly becomes a capability gap, and, eventually, a credibility gap, that is difficult to close once it opens.

The starting gun has already fired in this latest phase of the industry’s technology race. For those not already investing at scale, the challenge is no longer to catch up – it is to prevent the leaders from pulling too far ahead.

The right talent in the right places

Despite the increasing importance of technology, high-calibre senior talent remains a critical enabler of deal flow across Asia’s diverse and often idiosyncratic markets. In 2024, the banks that made the most meaningful improvements to client experience were those that invested directly in senior, on the ground talent in the region’s most active and structurally complex markets.

Among the Leaders, the link between local presence and improved execution outcomes was clearest at Deutsche Bank, UBS, Morgan Stanley and Citi, each of which deployed senior coverage, sector specialists or structuring resources in ways that tightened decision cycles and strengthened multi market delivery.

Deutsche Bank’s investment was the most comprehensive in terms of leadership density and operational impact. The bank deliberately placed MD level advisory and financing leadership directly in South Korea, Australia and Southeast Asia, creating senior led, local decision making environments that reduced response times and improved the predictability of underwriting and multi product execution. This mattered in cross currency and cross border transactions where Deutsche’s client advantage came from being able to design solutions on the ground, allowing risk management to be coordinated at origination rather than after the fact and improving outcome reliability for clients dealing with currency volatility. 

UBS’s scale up of talent across Asia positioned it as one of the region’s most locally present global leaders. Its expansion in Singapore, growth of its South Korea team, rebuilding of its India franchise and the development of a Vietnam focused team represents one of the broadest regional build-ups among international firms. For issuers, local senior presence boosts investor engagement precision and strengthens book stability in markets where relationship anchoring and local context materially influence pricing.

Morgan Stanley focused its hiring to reinforce execution capability in markets with deep deal pipelines or structurally important capital flows. Senior hires in Taiwan, South Korea DCM and Australia M&A, as well as strengthened Southeast Asia benches, gave the firm more local control over complex and time sensitive deal preparation. Morgan Stanley also designated a dedicated Apac–Gulf bridge banker to better connect Asian issuers with Middle Eastern strategic and financial capital, demonstrated through cross regional transactions such as the Alat convertible into Lenovo. This investment ensured clients benefitted from single touch coordination across regions rather than fragmented cross office communication. 

Citi’s leadership in talent was less about geographic expansion and more about continuity and senior banker stability. The franchise maintained virtually zero turnover in 2024 and upheld a model in which MDs remain hands on through execution, ensuring that advice, structuring and investor engagement stay tightly aligned throughout the deal lifecycle. For clients, this translated into smoother execution with fewer hand-off losses – critical in cross-border mandates where Citi’s unified coverage across South Korea, India, China/Hong Kong, Taiwan, the US and EMEA ensures issuers receive consistent, well-aligned guidance across multiple regulatory regimes.

Across the sector, investment in senior, locally based talent improved client experience in three consistent ways:

• accelerating underwriting and structuring decisions through proximity to both clients and regulators;

• enabling local currency and cross border solutions to be designed with real time market knowledge;

•  strengthening investor engagement and bookbuilding through teams embedded in the markets they cover.

In a constrained issuance environment, these leadership investments became a decisive advantage, ensuring issuers received more responsive, better sequenced and more predictable execution across Asia’s most active markets.

Making the One Bank model successful

It is clear how integrated models underpin execution excellence in Asia, but it is worth underscoring that a truly effective One Bank model is a capability that must be continuously reinforced. Turning universal banking platforms into coordinated deal flow engines, rather than lumbering leviathans, requires sustained investment in systems, incentives and the senior coordination that keeps cross-bank alignment functioning in practice.

The experience of 2024 made this clear that, when markets tightened, the banks that delivered the strongest client outcomes were those that had consistently invested in strengthening coordination across corporate, private and investment banking, and markets. Their ongoing organisational, staffing and systems investments reduced friction, accelerated decision cycles and allowed clients to receive coherent multi-product advice without the delays and inconsistencies of fragmented hand-offs.

At the heart of UBS’s success in this area, delivering in our view the strongest One Bank offering, is their putting in place of collaboration based KPIs, incentives, integrated systems and, importantly, senior leaders whose key role and accountability is for cross unit success. Building on this foundation, the sheer size of its global private banking operations makes the private bank and investment bank element of its One Bank integration uniquely powerful. This structure gives issuers direct access to UHNW and wealth management demand without running parallel processes, improving book quality and strengthening pricing outcomes, particularly in equity placements requiring stable, long only anchors. UBS’s extensive research and sales network across China, Hong Kong, India and South Korea further ensures that issuers receive a consolidated, high resolution view of investor sentiment. 

Deutsche Bank demonstrated a comprehensive operating model buildout. Its One Bank structure now brings together M&A, sector coverage, financing, FX, markets and corporate banking under unified governance, with senior decision makers placed directly in South Korea, Australia and Southeast Asia to improve responsiveness. 

HSBC’s One Bank investments in the year centred on integrating its investment bank, markets platform and digital infrastructure. It strengthened multi-role DCM and structuring teams, deployed Orion into the HKMA CMU for digital issuance at scale, and unified regional leadership across Asia. Together, these investments delivered faster decisions, cleaner execution and stronger deal-flow across complex, cross-border markets.

CICC’s vertically integrated onshore-offshore model gave clients consistent guidance across China’s complex regulatory landscape, ensuring product expertise, regulatory navigation and investor access to sit within a single operating framework. This alignment supported faster mobilisation of expertise and unified execution across equity and debt, reducing the coordination burden on issuers. 

Axis Capital and Maybank showed how regional institutions are also using group wide or multi market integration to improve client experience. Axis’s One Axis ecosystem provides issuers with seamless access to corporate bank, asset management, insurance, retail brokerage and NBFC capabilities, ensuring that anchor formation, institutional distribution and retail mobilisation can be planned as a single sequence. Maybank’s cross border coordination and regional distribution technology enabled issuers to run multi market investor engagement across Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Indonesia without duplicating effort, improving book depth and communication flow.

The firms that will define Asia’s next phase of capital markets leadership are those able to turn integration into an institutional muscle, one that aligns products, people and platforms around a single, frictionless client journey. The One Bank model is no longer a strategic aspiration but a measurable differentia. It concentrates decision making, accelerates complex cross border delivery and ensures that every part of the organisation moves in sync when windows tighten. In a region where execution certainty, speed, trust and multi product coherence increasingly determine who wins the mandate, the banks investing in deep, durable integration will deliver the best client experiences and the most enduring client relationships.

Intelligent capital, technology and talent investment are themes that continue to define the frontier of leadership in Asian investment banking. Banks that committed capital to scalable digital infrastructure are now delivering faster, cleaner and more certain execution; those that strengthened senior, on-the-ground talent are making better decisions and navigating complexity with greater precision; and those that invested in integrated operating models are giving clients a unified, seamless experience across products and markets. As Asia’s markets become more interconnected and more technically demanding, the firms that continue to invest in digital capability, senior expertise and organisational coherence will be the ones that shape outcomes.

Cross-border connectivity enabled by expanded regional footprints

The theme of strong but uneven GDP growth and distribution is a common one in Asia. There are equally wide disparities in the region on income, market development and market regulation openness, but this unevenness is beginning to flatten as developing Asia advances. To better facilitate intra and inter regional capital flows – from where it is available and seeking yield, to where it is badly needed – and to position for developing Asia’s continued rise, leading investment banks in Asia have been expanding their geographical footprints and developing their on-the-ground capabilities across developed and developing Asia.

In 2024, UBS expanded its geographic footprint to better facilitate cross-border capital flows into the region’s most dynamic economies. The integration of Credit Suisse accelerated this buildout, allowing UBS to scale senior coverage teams in South Korea, India and Southeast Asia. UBS connected capital rich North Asia and global investors to pan-Asian opportunities, resulting in a surge in intra Asian and intercontinental M&A, including North into Southeast Asia, China into Europe and Hong Kong to South-Korea transactions. In key developing market Vietnam, UBS’s enlarged coverage team facilitated sponsor exits and inbound flows, while South Korea’s upgraded platform supported outbound US dollar funding and inbound strategic acquisitions. By strengthening its footprint across diverse regulatory and developmental environments, UBS positioned itself at the centre of Asia’s increasingly integrated capital ecosystem.

Deutsche Bank strengthened its already mature Asia ex-Japan platform, spanning India, China, Hong Kong, South Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore and Indonesia, through strategic recruitment of sector and product bankers, alongside enhancing senior oversight in Indonesia. These enhancements, together with expanded sector expertise, equipped Deutsche to more effectively intermediate inbound, outbound and intra-Asian capital flows. This helped Deutsche’s team to deliver some of the most complex cross-border M&A, structured finance and DCM solutions of the year for their clients.

DBS broadened its Asian reach by deepening domestic and cross-border ECM and M&A activity across Singapore, Hong Kong, China, Indonesia and Asean. In Hong Kong, it strengthened its presence through IPO and follow-on execution for both SOEs and private SMEs, while in China, its onshore securities arm accelerated penetration of local capital markets and delivered diversified fundraising solutions to Chinese issuers pursuing cross-border financing. In Indonesia, rising league-table momentum and participation in landmark transactions underscored its growing on-the-ground franchise.

Citi’s truly pan-Asian physical presence – being locally embedded in every major Asian market – gives it a unique level of granularity of on the ground knowledge, expertise and relationships in the region. The bank has leveraged this wider presence to create a seamless origination network for its broad global product suite. The result is that Citi gives its buy- and sell-side clients in Asia access to a single global, multi-product platform. Such is Citi’s reach in Asia, that it didn’t have to expand geographically to take advantage of opportunities in 2024 – it merely had to redeploy existing senior resources to align with shifting client needs.

Chinese investment banks including CICC, BOCI and China Merchants Bank pursued similar expansionary policies by adding offices in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Europe, each broadening cross-border pathways for both Chinese clients investing outbound and international clients seeking access to China-related opportunities.

Banks that invested early in building local presence across developed and developing Asia were the ones able to capitalise on the increase in intercontinental cross-border deals that materialised in 2024. Their on the ground teams could engage regulators, navigate local market nuances and link issuers to the most relevant capital pools. The implication for issuers and investors is direct: if you want seamless access to capital across a fragmented region, you need partners who are physically present across that region. For bank leadership, the message is equally clear: geographic presence is the prerequisite both for capturing today’s uneven deal flow and positioning for the larger opportunities that will emerge as developing Asian markets deepen.

Expanded products delivering integrated capital solutions

Equally important to banks’ expanded geographic reach was their continued innovation and broadening of product offerings. As clients faced more complex, cross border liquidity requirements and sought greater certainty of funds in a dynamic and often volatile environment, the banks that invested in developing new structures, enhancing existing capabilities and integrating these products across their regional platforms were the ones best positioned to respond. This combination of on the ground presence and product innovation enabled institutions to meet clients’ needs with greater flexibility and reliability, ensuring they could support transactions across multiple markets even as conditions shifted.

In 2024, Standard Chartered introduced and scaled new structures across local currency, cross border and private credit markets, including the first NTD denominated sole MLAB syndication in more than a decade, the first cross border RMB TMT club loan, and multiple innovative hybrid structures such as the USD-INR synthetic PTC backed social bond for Shriram Group.  Its enhanced product suite now includes G3 loans and bonds, high yield, ESG financing, acquisition finance and bespoke private credit solutions. The later illustrated by eight private credit deals that were concluded in 2024, including a landmark sole underwritten transaction for Vedanta.

These additions give StanChart a multi asset toolkit for clients that, reinforced by its cross border execution strength in China and India, enabled the bank to lead 81 transactions in 2024.

DBS accelerated its product innovation agenda, introducing multiple first to market structures across Asia. The bank delivered Asia’s first sustainability linked perpetual securities, pioneered retail accessible private equity securitisation and enabled debut CNH and panda bond access for major issuers through expanded RMB platforms. New perpetual capital formats, green and sustainable bond structures, and onshore China private placements further enhanced DBS’s ability to provide integrated, multi currency capital solutions across the region.

Deutsche Bank broadened its Asia ex Japan platform with new and enhanced product capabilities, including Apac’s first NAV financing, bespoke special situations and structured credit solutions, ESG linked and green financing, and innovative high yield and project bond structures. These additions, delivered across multiple currencies and capital pools, enable Deutsche to provide fully integrated capital solutions and support complex inbound, outbound and intra Asian financing needs.

Indian banks such as Axis Capital and Kotak Mahindra also embodied this theme. Axis expanded its product suite across ECM, DCM, structured finance, M&A, Reits, InvITs and private equity advisory. Kotak expanded across leveraged finance, structured equity, project finance and structured NCDs, supporting investors and issuers across India’s key growth corridors.

Across the region, the banks that made the most progress in 2024 were those that expanded product platforms in tandem with geographic coverage, turning multi-product capability into a genuine widening of client options. Tough markets demand agility and product innovation to solve client problems – banks that could deliver in this area succeeded.

Sector expertise expansion across Asia 

Expanding the depth of sector expertise became increasingly important for investment banks in Asia as capital markets activity grew more specialised and industry dynamics diverged across sectors. Investors and corporate clients faced complex structural shifts including tariff and geopolitical-related supply chain realignments, the energy transition, rapid advances in technology and growing digital infrastructure needs.

These developments – along with, in many cases, still developing or reforming regulatory environments – required deeper industry insight to evaluate risks and opportunities, and design structures appropriately. Clients sought to combat increased uncertainty with expertise. Enhanced sector coverage also improved banks’ client proximity, strengthening service quality and relationships; ultimately leading to differentiated deal flow.

UBS expanded its sector footprint across Asia by combining Credit Suisse’s strengths with its own historic leadership, enabling deeper penetration into technology, healthcare, financial services, energy, industrials and consumer verticals. The firm executed landmark TMT transactions across Taiwan and Greater China, including major GDR and convertible bond offerings for Gigabyte, VIA, Alchip and JD.com, while also broadening into metals and mining, and real estate through sizeable deals for Zijin Mining and Midea’s Hong Kong IPO. In parallel, UBS strengthened its healthcare and education franchises via Haleon’s China JV acquisition and the sale of Education Index Management. The integration delivered significant gains in Southeast Asia and South Korea, with UBS capturing leading roles in renewables, infrastructure, insurance and industrials sector deals.

Morgan Stanley also expanded sector coverage across technology, consumer, financial institutions, real estate and industrials, reinforced by new senior hires in Taiwan and South Korea. Broader, deeper sector expertise enabled the firm to lead many of 2024’s most significant M&A, ECM and DCM transactions, including transformative jumbo deals across TMT, autos, financials and resources. This highlights how sector penetration can be directly translated into significant deal-flow.

Standard Chartered significantly broadened its industry sector coverage, deepening capabilities across diversified industries, TMT, real assets, financial services, metals and mining, cleantech, and oil and gas. This expansion enabled the bank to originate and execute landmark transactions across the battery value chain, data centres, EV mobility and industrials, strengthening its position as a leading cross-border adviser. Wider sector reach again directly increased deal flow, delivering differentiated mandates across Asia’s most active and emerging industries, including Vedanta Resources’ $1.25 billion private credit facility mandate.

DBS expanded sector coverage across Reits, data centres, logistics, technology, F&B, infrastructure, healthcare and green energy, spanning ECM, DCM and M&A. This broadened platform strengthened its leadership in Singapore and Asean ECM, driving record equity raises. In DCM, wider ESG and infrastructure coverage delivered landmark green and sustainability-linked issuances. In M&A, deeper industry verticals enabled major cross-border transactions, boosting deal volume, market share and investor diversification.

Deutsche Bank, CIMB and Maybank also deepened their reach across Asean sectors. Together they delivered landmark transactions, stronger execution, diversified investor engagement and accelerated client wins; culminating in materially higher deal flow and fee growth. This shows that sector expansion was a broad and effective theme that drove deal flow for leading banks across Asia.

In volatile times, winning in Asia’s fragmented and diverse capital markets requires one thing above all: proximity to clients, in geography, in product relevance and in sector expertise. The banks that invested decisively in expanding their physical footprint, deepening their product toolkits and building specialist knowledge were the ones able to navigate uneven market conditions and meet clients exactly where their needs emerged. These moves were not only defensive strategies; they were forward looking bets on the structural rise of developing Asia and, more broadly, on Asia’s polycentric, multi speed transformation – where policy, technology, geopolitics and capital markets are reshaping opportunities across developed and developing economies.

As the wider region accelerates infrastructure buildout, attracts increasingly sophisticated capital flows and develops deeper domestic markets, the institutions that have embedded themselves closest to the opportunity set are now positioned to lead the next stage. The investments made in 2024 did more than win mandates – they laid the foundation for long-term dominance in the capital markets of an Asia that is still growing into its full scale and complexity.

Investment banking is rapidly evolving and the banks that are succeeding in Asia – the world’s economic growth engine – are those that have built foundations of execution excellence and deep client proximity into the hearts of their platforms.

This year’s market map revealed that, in Asia, scale is still the entry ticket, combining presence on the ground, local regulatory fluency and sector depth, with reach that unlocks inbound capital and the ability to distribute at pace. However, in volatile markets, scale only matters if paired with agility and an execution culture built for speed and certainty. To achieve this, winning franchises fuse coverage, structuring, risk and execution into one tightly coordinated team. They offer solutions in multiple currencies early in the process, make sure those solutions match clients’ funding needs, and work closely with clients through a true One Bank model where the whole firm shows up as a single, unified partner. UBS, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank and Citi set the standard for their ability to pair scale and reach with potent integrated platforms.

Technology in the hands of high-calibre senior talent is redefining execution standards across the region, creating a technology gap that is translating directly into a capability gap. This is creating sustainable competitive advantages for technology leaders – banks with the ability to invest in technology solutions consistently and at scale.

Asia is vast and diverse, meaning that banks can succeed and scale in ways other than the global model followed by major Western banks. Chinese banks will dominate China-linked flows, Indian banks will forge similar routes and roles for India, and Asean champions such as CIMB and Maybank will continue to compete effectively in their corridors and core products.

The future shape of investment banking in Asia is already visible to those closest to the market. To lead in this next chapter, banks will need to combine scale with on-the-ground knowledge, platform agility and technology leadership. The goal will be to deliver clients expertise and product optionality to iron out uncertainty and achieve superior execution, all where regulation allows, in rapidly compressing timeframes. 

Key competitive differentiators to win the next cycle:

• Compressing timelines, creating client certainty

Integrated platforms that prewire liquidity and compress timelines will deliver greater certainty to clients and outperform on mandate allocations;

• Technology and talent driven execution

Banks that successfully embed AI across franchise activities and combine it with strategically placed decision-making talent will set the standard on client engagement and execution reliability;

• Scale paired with proximity

Global reach matched with senior, on-the-ground expertise and sector knowledge will unlock new activity across the region and drive repeatable mandate growth;

• Multi-currency, multi-market flexibility

Institutions designing capital solutions around liability and revenue currency alignment with jurisdictional fluency will capitalise on the growing preference of local currency instruments;

• Public and private market fluency

Firms that can seamlessly blend private, structured and public market solutions to match client needs and timings with market appetites will unlock better outcomes for clients in volatile environments.

2026 is shaping up as a continuation – and acceleration – of the forces that defined late 2025. Rather than easing, volatility, policy divergence and geopolitical tension are intensifying across Asia. Yet deal activity continues to move forward, supported by a more disciplined operating environment across the region’s leading banks.

The strategic investments made in 2024 – scale, agile coverage, technology led execution and deeper on the ground proximity to clients – are proving even more critical now than they were two years ago. In 2026, these capabilities are no longer simply helping firms outperform in challenging conditions – they are beginning to redraw the competitive landscape. The banks that built resilient platforms early are now positioned not just to weather uncertainty but to define the next phase of Asian investment banking: one where speed, insight and integrated cross border connectivity determine market leadership.