The new drivers of cross-border finance
Roberto Hoornweg explores how uncertainty, resilience and connectivity are reshaping global trade, investment and cross-border finance.
This article was originally published in Caixin Global.
“We are now in a world where price is no longer decisive. What matters instead is operational resilience and certainty of delivery,” Roberto Hoornweg, Chief Executive Officer of Corporate & Investment Banking (CIB) at Standard Chartered, said at the bank’s China headquarters in Shanghai.
For Hoornweg, the value of these capabilities lies in helping clients identify trade and investment corridors that remain reliable in a more fragmented and uncertain world. Standard Chartered’s comparative advantage as a global network bank is precisely its ability to connect corporate and institutional clients across markets and provide integrated cross-border financial services.
Trade corridors: Gulf states’ resilience investment creates new routes for Chinese companies
Hoornweg believes that since the global financial crisis, the world has faced what feels like a once-in-a-lifetime shock every few years. In the past five years alone, Covid-19, shifts in the US administration’s policy stance, and the recent conflict in the Middle East have all delivered major shocks to the global business system.
These disruptions have forced companies to rethink how they structure their supply chains. In the past, production, procurement and logistics could be organised around the lowest cost and highest efficiency. Today, uncertainty itself has become a cost. Hoornweg said tariffs are not the only issue; the bigger problem is uncertainty – companies do not know how policy may change in the future.
In his view, regional comparative advantages will continue to exist, and the world is certainly not returning to a model in which every country produces everything domestically. But in critical sectors such as defence, energy and AI, countries will place greater emphasis on supply-chain security, domestic capabilities and regional resilience.
Supply chains are being redesigned around the safest and most reliable delivery.
Roberto HoornwegCEO, Corporate & Investment Banking
Against this backdrop, trade and investment corridors such as China-ASEAN and China-Gulf are likely to become increasingly important.
The Gulf is a case in point. Over the past two decades, the region has broadly maintained an open, neutral and business-friendly stance toward multiple parties on the global stage, while also building up considerable fiscal capacity. But recent conflicts have sharpened Gulf states’ awareness that critical infrastructure – from water purification systems, pipelines, ports and power grids to data centres – requires stronger operational resilience.
At the same time, Gulf states generally have relatively low levels of debt and, as long as oil prices do not fall sharply, possess strong fiscal revenue capacity.
“They are going to spend 10 per cent, 15 per cent or even 20 per cent of debt to GDP to invest in resilience, whether in supply chains or domestic infrastructure,” Hoornweg said.
That suggests the Gulf region could see a new investment cycle in the coming years, centred on operational resilience and the security of critical infrastructure. In Hoornweg’s view, this will create significant opportunities for large engineering, energy, manufacturing and infrastructure companies, including Chinese firms.
“Chinese companies are hugely competitive and are very likely to win some of that business,” he said.
Another opportunity in the Gulf lies in artificial intelligence infrastructure. AI data centres, power supply, energy storage, transmission networks, cybersecurity and data-sovereignty frameworks are strategically important for many countries, and could become a key part of the Gulf’s efforts to rebuild operational resilience. Hoornweg expects such investment to attract foreign capital into AI infrastructure, while also driving local spending on security, real estate, transmission networks and data centres.
Hoornweg also noted that as Chinese companies move up the value chain – becoming producers of intellectual property and exporters of services – Singapore, the UAE and other Asian hubs could serve as launchpads for their global expansion. Latin America, including Brazil, is another region Standard Chartered is watching closely.
“Standard Chartered deploys Chinese-speaking talent to countries where Chinese clients operate, so that we can be closer to local needs and help clients with market entry, treasury management, risk hedging and cross-border connectivity,” he said.
For Standard Chartered, this is where the value of a cross-border bank lies. Hoornweg said the bank’s advantage does not come from serving domestic clients in a single market, but from accompanying clients as they expand across borders and supporting them across multiple markets, countries and products.
This is particularly relevant as Chinese companies expand internationally. As trade and investment flows deepen between China and faster-growing markets across Asia, the Middle East and beyond, companies increasingly require financing, risk management and treasury capabilities that can operate seamlessly across borders.
Renminbi internationalisation: Corporate needs move beyond policy narrative
On renminbi internationalisation, Hoornweg reiterated a view he had expressed at an earlier investor event: the currency’s globalisation is an “unstoppable” trend. Compared with a decade ago, he believes the momentum today is no longer driven solely by policy, but increasingly by real-world needs in trade, supply chains, funding costs and asset allocation.
Standard Chartered’s recent report, Renminbi in motion for corporates, shows that China accounts for more than 15 per cent of global trade, yet the renminbi’s share of global payments and foreign-exchange reserves remains relatively low. At the same time, renminbi usage is increasingly being driven by operational needs, including trade settlement, supply-chain finance, balance-sheet matching, and foreign-exchange and interest-rate risk management.
Global companies already have significant operating exposure to the renminbi, but their funding and treasury systems have yet to fully catch up. Hoornweg said that by measures such as global reserve allocations, foreign holdings of Chinese government bonds and the renminbi’s share of global reserves, the world remains clearly under-allocated to the renminbi and Chinese duration assets.
“The world is short RMB, and the world is short Chinese duration,” he said.
In his view, that imbalance will gradually correct over time. As more central banks, long-term institutional investors and global savings pools allocate capital to renminbi assets, demand for both renminbi bonds and the currency itself will rise.
Supply-chain restructuring is also likely to drive greater use of the renminbi. If, for example, a Southeast Asian company relies on Chinese manufacturers within its supply chain, then the use of renminbi in transactions, financing and treasury arrangements will naturally increase.
RMB internationalisation depends on whether there is an ecosystem with sufficient liquidity both inside and outside China.Roberto HoornwegCEO, Corporate & Investment Banking
Sustainable finance: Client demand drives the market
Sustainable finance and transition finance are among Standard Chartered CIB’s key strategic capabilities. Hoornweg said Standard Chartered embedded sustainable finance into its core business at an early stage – a decision shaped by Group Chief Executive Bill Winters’ strategic view. Standard Chartered wanted to be an active financier of sustainable development and made clear to clients that if their businesses moved entirely against the direction of the sustainability transition, the bank would find it difficult to continue supporting them.
In his view, sustainable finance is not a philanthropic activity parallel to commercial returns. It is a business driven by strong client demand, with the potential to generate both revenue and long-term value.
“We don’t do this simply because sustainability has become a public expectation. We do it because client demand is very strong,” Hoornweg said.
Standard Chartered aims to reach net zero in its financed emissions by 2050 and plans to mobilise USD300 billion for sustainable finance projects by 2030. As of September 2025, the bank had mobilised USD157 billion for sustainable finance, and in 2025 its sustainable finance-related income exceeded USD1 billion for the first time.
Hoornweg believes conventional energy and new energy will coexist for a considerable period, given the scale of global energy demand. As sectors such as electric vehicles, batteries, solar power and energy storage accelerate their overseas expansion, Chinese companies are not only important participants in the global energy transition, but also need to navigate differing green finance, transition finance and ESG standards across markets.
Hoornweg said that if banks can help companies understand requirements in different markets and access long-term capital through cross-border networks, sustainable finance becomes more than a compliance cost. It can become a financing advantage for companies expanding globally.
“If we can help make the world more sustainable, that is a very meaningful thing, and it is part of our values,” he said.
If, along the way, we can also solve client problems and grow our business, then for us sustainability itself is a sound business decision.Roberto HoornwegCEO, Corporate & Investment Banking
He also stressed that Standard Chartered will not serve every client. For some companies that have taken no action at all on transition, the bank has had difficult conversations and discontinued certain business relationships. But for companies that still operate largely in high-emission sectors but have credible transition pathways, Standard Chartered will continue to provide financing support.
Financial institution partnerships: Finding new capital sources for corporate financing
Financial institutions are another strategic priority for Standard Chartered CIB. Hoornweg said the growth of the financial institutions business reflects the bank’s continued efforts to strengthen its ability to serve long-term corporate clients by “find new homes for their debt”.
In an environment marked by capital constraints and cross-border regulation, banks cannot keep all corporate risk exposure on their own balance sheets. This is where O2D (originate-to-distribute) becomes important. After originating loans and financing arrangements, banks retain part of the exposure while distributing part of the risk to institutional investors such as insurers, funds and asset managers.
You have to add some velocity to the balance sheet. That is where the financial institutions business comes from.Roberto HoornwegCEO, Corporate & Investment Banking
On the internationalisation of China’s financial institutions, Hoornweg believes the complementary relationship between Standard Chartered and Chinese banks, securities firms, insurers and asset managers is “a pretty good jigsaw puzzle match.” Chinese institutions have deep local client relationships and can reach many companies that Standard Chartered does not directly serve. Standard Chartered, meanwhile, brings overseas licences, cross-border networks and connections with international investors.
On one side, Chinese financial institutions can accompany their clients overseas, while Standard Chartered provides support in areas such as market access, investor connectivity, risk hedging, treasury management and regulatory execution. On the other, as Chinese banks, securities firms, insurers and asset managers pursue overseas asset allocation and balance-sheet diversification, they will also become important institution clients for Standard Chartered.
For foreign capital entering China, Hoornweg said Standard Chartered already has a well-established business serving foreign funds moving into and out of China’s bond and renminbi markets. The bank has strong trading teams in Shanghai and Hong Kong and maintains close relationships with regulators.
Hoornweg believes international views on China are sharply divided. Some global PE firms have chosen to stay away due to geopolitics and perceived complexity, while others that have invested real time and resources in the market remain firmly convinced of China’s appeal. He said some international institutions deeply engaged in the Chinese market believe China’s legal and regulatory framework is highly robust; the key is whether investors can identify the right trends and make the right investments.
He also noted that China’s bond market, particularly its investment-grade corporate bond market, still has room to develop. At present, Chinese corporate financing remains heavily reliant on bank loans, while capital markets are more focused on equities. If China can build a deeper and more mature corporate bond market over time, it would help broaden financing channels for companies and attract more long-term capital.
The AI boom: Separating long-term value from market hype
AI is driving a new global capital expenditure cycle, reshaping energy demand, data centres, technology infrastructure and supply-chain configurations. For cross-border banks, AI offers real productivity gains, but it also brings the risk of stretched valuations and overheated investment.
Hoornweg said Standard Chartered is taking a “very careful” approach to supporting AI-related companies and projects.
He compared the current AI boom with the internet bubble of 25 years ago. Back then, it was difficult for the market to tell which companies would become the next Google and which would turn out to be the next pets.com – businesses that traded at high valuations before quickly collapsing. Today’s AI sector is similarly marked by enormous demand, but not every company or project will create lasting value.
“We want to finance and support partners that we feel have a very strong business plan,” he said.
Hoornweg said Standard Chartered relies on its risk management and client coverage teams to assess counterparties, while applying strict transaction-level discipline around documentation, collateral, structuring and risk mitigation. Given the sheer scale of capital required for AI-related projects, Standard Chartered also often participates alongside other financial institutions.
At the same time, he believes AI has enormous potential for the financial industry itself. Large banks hold vast amounts of client data internally, but that data is often fragmented across different systems. For example, the same Chinese company may be covered by separate client teams in mainland China and Hong Kong, while its foreign-exchange transactions, loans, meeting records and risk exposures may sit in different systems.
If AI can help banks bring that existing data together and present it in a useful way to relationship managers and clients, it could significantly enhance the bank’s ability to serve clients.
The value already exists within our data. Harvesting it, making sense of it – that is where I think AI can really help.Roberto HoornwegCEO, Corporate & Investment Banking
The new role of cross-border banks in a fragmented world
From operational resilience in the Gulf, to renminbi internationalisation; from Chinese companies going global, to financial institution partnerships; from sustainable finance, to AI infrastructure, the keyword Hoornweg returned to repeatedly was “certainty.”
In a more fragmented and uncertain world, what companies need is not just low-cost capital or single-market services. What they require is an integrated capability that can help them navigate different regulatory, currency, capital and risk environments.
For Chinese companies, this means overseas expansion is entering a new stage. They need not only to export products and capacity, but also to build capabilities in local treasury management, risk hedging, compliance execution, long-term financing and global resource connectivity.
For Standard Chartered, the core of CIB’s new strategy is to provide higher-quality global connectivity to clients through its cross-border network and financial institution partnerships. As Hoornweg put it, competitive advantage does not simply come from “who we are,” but from “what we can do for clients, and what problems we can solve that clients truly value.”
Related insights
Three renminbi trends financial institutions should watch
As renminbi use grows, financial institutions are assessing whether its markets can support liquidity, risk, fun…
Standard Chartered has an important role to play in supporting our clients, sectors and markets to deliver net zero, but to do so in a manner that supports livelihoods and promotes sustainable economic growth. We provide financial services to clients, sectors and markets that contribute to greenhouse gas emissions however we’re committed to managing our environmental and social risks and to becoming net zero in our financed emissions by 2050.