Standard & Poor's investment research, a service normally reserved for institutional and wealthy investors, will be made available to retail banking customers in Asia for the first time after the firm reached an agreement with DBS Bank. The project will allow customers buying mutual funds through the Singapore-based bank access to S&P's research advice, marking an important step in the rating agency's bid to expand its investment advisory business in Asia. Those whose investment exceed a certain amount will receive personalised service. 'Many people look at us as being only a rating agency. We hope that this type of alliance [with DBS] will help us build the image of a more comprehensive financial advisory company,' said William Reidy, S&P's managing director of Asia-Pacific investment services. Set up in the mid-1990s as an extension to its credit rating service, S&P's investment advisory arm had in its earlier stages provided research services only to domestic United States clients. Since last year, it has begun providing independent research of stocks to clients in Asia as a test case for expanding the business globally. In a recent interview with the South China Morning Post, Harold McGraw, chairman and chief executive of S&P parent company McGraw-Hill, said the settlement between US financial regulators and Wall Street investment bankers over the latter's relationships with their research analysts had created a unique opportunity for S&P to further extend its businesses to the more profitable research side. The alliance with DBS would be part of the 'top of a pyramid signifying S&P's business strategy', Mr Reidy said, adding that its strong research and ratings business had already provided a core platform
