Although ESG and sustainability is increasingly engrained in corporate strategy at APAC organisations, corporate giving trails in comparison to peer organisations in Europe and the US. Only one Asian company features in not-for-profit consultancy Bridgespan Group’s 2025 top ten global corporate givers in a report which also reveals annual giving by the 20 largest Asian corporates has plateaued in the wake of the pandemic relative to global peers. Meanwhile, the Centre for Asian Philanthropy and Society (CAPS) estimates that US$5.3bn needs to be generated annually from corporate philanthropy in APAC to match global benchmarks, equivalent to nearly six times the USAID budget for South‑East Asia in 2024. In a report published last year, CAPS argued that the region’s corporates would give more if governments introduced stronger policies and incentives like tax benefits and encouraged more cross-border giving and regional collaboration.
Yet Stephen Leung, a London-based independent treasury consultant with 30-years of treasury experience in Asia that included a five-year stint as treasurer of the Hong Kong Jockey Club until 2024, has witnessed the indirect benefits of giving. Bridgespan lists The Hong Kong Jockey Club and its Charities Trust is the largest corporate giver in Asia and number eight globally. He tells Treasury Today that a credible and well-governed giving programme can build trust with stakeholders, improve a company’s ESG standing and help build operations in a particular country. “Giving can form part of a transparent, carefully-managed engagement with regulators that helps build long-term credibility and trust in a particular region,” he says. “But it’s a challenge for treasury teams because corporate giving isn’t measured in the same way they measure a regular treasury investment.”
Policies in action
There are encouraging signs of change. Giving is more commonplace in large, family-owned businesses with foundation arms like the Ayala Foundation in the Philippines and the Tanoto Foundation, which focuses on education and healthcare across Asia. And as the profitability of Asia’s corporate champions like Tencent Holdings, Alibaba Group and Tata Group grows, giving is also on the rise.
Corporate giving in the region has also grown off the back of government policies. In 2013, India mandated large companies to spend at least 2% of their average net profits on corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities. Since then, annual CSR spending has nearly tripled from approximately US$1.2bn to US$3.5bn, and it now accounts for 30% of the country’s total philanthropic funding.
Since China made CSR reporting a legal obligation in 2005, the number of CSR annual reports published by Chinese companies rose from four to more than 2,648 by 2022. In China, there are rarely explicit demands on corporates to give, but giving helps maintain and protect their social license to operate, says Xueling Lee, a partner at The Bridgespan Group and co-author of the report. In one trend, companies are taking advantage of their own corporate capabilities to support giving like Tencent, which used its WeChat platform in China to encourage people to give directly to non-profits. “Chinese corporates are increasingly thinking about what is their unique capability to make a difference,” she says.
The benefits of giving
Corporates are also increasingly aware that their license to operate is tied to giving. As Lee explains, “Companies are recognising that their social license to operate comes from earning ongoing trust from the communities they work with.” In 2017, South Korean conglomerate SK Group made social good an official part of its business model pledging to “earn trust from society” and “actively pursue social value and reform.” Tata Steel Foundation’s development of a public‑private partnership to address maternal and infant mortality rates in rural India, home to its factories, reflects this growing imperative to align business presence with community outcomes.
The region’s corporates have also plugged into the fact giving supports employee engagement, meaning and purpose, and this in turn supports retention.
Japanese bank Nomura has developed its own CSR programme, chosen by employees. In Asia, excluding the Japan region, Nomura’s CSR programme targets early childhood education to break the cycle of poverty. The bank selected this focus area for its corporate grant programme after surveying employees and consulting experts, prioritising causes with the potential for sustainable impact and high employee engagement. “Employees showed strong support for poverty, education and children-related causes. Furthermore, pre-primary education is widely recognised as a cost-effective intervention for reducing inequality and promoting prosperity,” says Aleem Jivraj, COO of Global Markets at Nomura and Chair of the Asia ex Japan Social Impact Steering Committee.
Nomura also actively supports employee-led giving to other causes. “We encourage employees to find causes they’re passionate about and provide benefits like donation matching and volunteer leave,” he continues. “We aim to further strengthen the culture of giving at Nomura with employee participation in the region having increased by 65% in the last three years.”
In another evolution, Asian companies are also becoming more strategic and thematic in their giving. The days of cheque book giving are being replaced with corporates shaping a clear and focused strategy that seeks to move the needle on specific issues over a longer time horizon. Examples include The Jollibee Group Foundation, the social development arm of the Philippines Jollibee Group, which has focused its philanthropy on supporting access to food above all other issues that includes supporting smallholder farmers strengthen market linkages and increase their income through direct supply to Jollibee Group and other buyers.
“In Hong Kong, companies are becoming more focused on the sector they wanted to help related to their core business. Corporate giving has evolved from just writing a cheque,” adds Leung.
Commentators also observe that giving in Asia is changing in line with boards and investors asking more pressing questions around impact. Lee estimates less than 30% of corporates currently report the outcomes from their giving, but predicts this will start to change. “There are concerns about whitewashing and impact: people want to see results,” she says.
How can treasury support?
Giving is complex for treasury teams, especially if it involves large cross-border payments and FX risk. KYC is a key issue; giving also involves dispersal schedules with liquidity implications and an audit trail. It requires cross departmental collaboration to ensure the right box is ticked at every point in the process across legal, compliance, cash flow and KYC to ensure that funds can safely move from a corporate giving pool to the receiving organisation without violating rules and regulations.
Corporate giving in Asia is becoming more strategic, but many corporates still focus most of their activity on providing support for relief after natural disasters. Even this relatively straightforward philanthropy still requires a regular pool of liquidity at the ready to draw down when nature strikes. “You cannot predict when an earthquake or flood occurs, but if you’ve committed to help, you need to know where the cash will come from. You can’t wait three weeks for a deposit to mature. Responding to natural disasters requires reacting instantly,” reflects Leung.
But perhaps the main deterrents to more corporate giving is the KYC required to certify regulatory requirements and a low risk tolerance to errors. A charity payment (particularly a one-off payment) comes with more complexities than a regular payment to a supplier where treasury know the company, has a long transaction history and can easily rectify errors: corporate giving comes with a higher level of scrutiny that makes the prospect of a mistake even more risky. “One consideration for corporate giving, particularly for financial institutions, is managing the regulatory requirements and KYC processes for both grant-making and donation matching programmes,” says Jivraj.
It gets even more complicated if the donation requires a cross-border payment that involves receiving banks and correspondent banks that could introduce delays or restrictions around payment release and FX conversion, particularly where regulatory approvals are required. “The regulator in the receiving country may have a special request or require approvals from the banking regulator before they give a green light,” flags Leung.
Commentators observe the cultural leap and different mindset philanthropy and giving requires of treasury.
Yet ironically, treasury and finance teams are also uniquely positioned to source the expertise philanthropy requires. Treasury has senior role models for example, prepared to lay their reputation on the line and who can lead the whole organisation with expertise across multiple touchpoints, and with the ability to advise the board and senior management. Treasury is also well positioned to shape a Standard Operating Procedure to follow before committing to payments that involves the entire finance team playing a role in an end-to-end process to truly safeguard the organisation’s financial integrity and ensure liquidity, currency conversion, regulatory compliance and successfully record of the transaction. “If the giving is in-kind, it will need a valuation and that gets even more complicated,” he adds.
Future trends
As well as the need to ready treasury and deepen financial skills, especially around KYC, to enable more corporate giving, commentators also suggest stronger public private partnerships in Asia would help build trust and transparency around giving. The nascent development and quality of non-profits, as well as stronger policy frameworks like tax incentives, are also key. Other steps could include promoting government-endorsed CSR awards and clarifying how CSR fits within sustainability frameworks for listed companies.
Jivraj also believes peer influence could drive broader adoption: “If businesses see more of their peers prioritising giving, they would be encouraged to follow suit.”
