Asia United Bank (AUB) has recently received the Wells Fargo Operational Excellence Special Recognition Award from leading financial services firm Wells Fargo.

Robert Lin (center), managing director and Head of GTM Banks - Asia-Pacific, Global Treasury Management at Wells Fargo Bank N.A. hands over the award certificate to Zita M. Los Baños, first vice president, Treasury Operations at Asia United Bank (AUB). Witnessing the award ceremony were AUB officials (from left) Antonio V. Agcaoili Jr., executive vice president and Treasury Group Head; Wilfredo E. Rodriguez Jr. EVP, IT & Operations Group Head; Fermin de Guzman, assistant vice president, Treasury Operations; Dana Mikaela Madi, cable staff, Treasury Operations; Welma T. Donguines, senior manager, Treasury Operations, and Jasper Lim, director/senior relationship manager, FI Group, Wells Fargo Bank.

AUB bags highest global award from Wells Fargo

”Only the top 25% globally gets recognized and receives the award,” said Jasper Lim, executive director and senior relationship manager for Banks APAC-South at Wells Fargo.

The Special Recognition award was given to AUB for consistently showing improvement in the straight-through processing (STP) rate for the past three years: 99.38% in 2021, 99.59% in 2022, and a near perfect 99.9% in 2023. The Special Recognition Award was a first for AUB, which has previously been awarded for Operational Excellence, Wells Fargo’s highest global operational award.

“The award is a concrete testament to the strong partnership between AUB and Wells Fargo over the years, particularly recognizing AUB’s ability to process USD payments for its customers in a very efficient manner by channeling such payments to Wells Fargo. With majority of the USD payments being processed straight-through (no manual intervention), funds are being sent to recipients in a timely manner. Wells Fargo was one of the very few US banks that saw the potential of AUB and has since supported AUB in the payments business,” Mr. Lim added.

“This award is a result of the consistent collaboration among our Treasury, IT, and Quality Assurance in ensuring 99.9% STP of transactions and with minimal inquiry at 1.4% of the volume,” said Zita Los Baños, AUB first vice president and head of Treasury Operations.

International payments are an integral component of banking relationships in today's globalized economy. The responsibility for quickly and efficiently processing them is a shared effort by all financial institutions involved.

Challenges in global payments have been on the rise due to the shift in consumer and business behavioral patterns, enabled by advances in technology and the availability of unconventional payment channels coming to market. These challenges include cyberfraud, money laundering and terrorist financing activities that continue to threaten the stability of the banking system as money payments become more complex, and go through several channels before reaching the ultimate beneficiaries.

“This is why getting the top recognition from our global payments partner Wells Fargo is no mean feat,” said Wilfredo E. Rodriguez Jr., AUB executive vice president and head of IT and Operations. “We continue to improve on our digital capabilities while being strictly adherent to the requirements on industry standards for the SWIFT environment, which also includes the security requirements of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, as well as all regulatory requirements on ML/TF checking and validations.”

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