EFG Bank Singapore’s Deputy CEO and Head of Private Banking Oliver Balmelli on Delivering Private Clients and IAMs a Best-in-Class Service

EFG International recently released its business update for the first quarter with Assets under Management grown by CHF 11.2 billion to reach an all-time high of CHF 170.0 billion and indicating strong profitability. Hubbis met recently with Oliver Balmelli, Deputy Chief Executive Officer and Head of EFG Private Banking Singapore at EFG Bank, to learn more of the progress in Asia and hear more of the rollout of the bank’s proposition to capture a growing share of the region’s dynamic private wealth market. As he also heads up the bank’s relationships with the independent wealth community in the region, he also explains just why the proposition is so compelling today and how the bank is keeping ahead of the pack to deliver the best solutions and services to the IAM (Independent Asset Manager) community.

In Brief

Some fine results, and strong performance

EFG produced some excellent results for the year to March 31, with AUM up by more than CHF 11 billion to CHF 170 billion, with continued strong profitability for the first quarter of 2021 and with a robust balance sheet with total capital of almost 22%, sensibly reinforced by USD400 million of Additional Tier 1 Notes issued in January.

A broad-based proposition

EFG’s private banking and asset management offering comprises DPM and advisory investment solutions, estate, wealth and succession planning, and a wide range of financing solutions. The bank’s global trading and execution business serves sophisticated private and institutional clients, and there is a particular focus on IAMs worldwide.

IAMs central to the Asia-wide offering

IAMs are of increasing importance in Asia, and EFG has been working hard to boost the offering in a wide variety of areas, from the agile managerial and entrepreneurial approach, to the hiring of new dedicated talent, boosting digital solutions, enhancing the platform and improving remote onboard and other accessibility. As a result, the IAM segment in Asia recorded a strong growth since early 2020.

Key strengths offer the support for IAMs

The bank not only offers what it considers a best-in-class and dedicated offering to the IAMs but provides robust operational support and a strong balance sheet, resulting in the type of reassurance the independent wealth sector requires, underpinned by the bank’s strong risk and compliance framework.

Open-door approach

The bank prides itself on offering its IAM and wealthier clients open access to key decision-makers in the region, from the executive chairman downwards. This responsiveness and open-door approach are at the heart of the EFG offering.

Adding more pieces to the board

EFG has launched a new and comprehensive multi-custody platform in late 2019, which has been well received and is soon to roll out its Smart KYC FinTech offering to significantly speed up IAM account opening, boost compliance and enhance the level of service. EFG also added its eBanking Pro solution, allowing IAMs to trade directly through the bank without first contacting the bank.

Tales of talent

Naturally, the bank has also been refining its talent pool across the region as well, adding where new opportunities beckon and bringing in new experts in their various fields. In the IAM arena, EFG’s CROs [client relationship officers] in Asia have an average of 15 years of experience.

Missions possible

Digitisation, the boosting of relevance in terms of ideas and products, and the enhancement of the talent pool are all key priorities ahead.

New offices and new opportunities

In Singapore, EFG has moved its location to the city’s financial centre and enhanced and increased its office space recently, a decision that was taken before the pandemic hit, but allows for state-of-the-art workplaces today and offers the necessary room for expansion in the future.

The Report

EFG International is a global private banking group headquartered in Zurich. As a leading Swiss private bank, EFG International has a presence in major financial centres and growth markets. It operates in around 40 locations worldwide, with a network spanning Europe, Asia Pacific, the Americas and the Middle East. An entrepreneurial spirit has shaped the bank since it was established, enabling it to develop hands-on solutions and to build long-lasting client relationships.

The key EFG offerings

EFG’s wealth management offering today encompasses investment solutions (discretionary mandates and advisory mandates), wealth solutions (from corporate finance or succession planning to retirement provision) and financing solutions (including a range of financing facilities to construct investment portfolios).

EFG’s group-wide Investment Solutions platform leads all asset management activities and provides global guidance and coordination on advisory and product management, while the global, diversified trading business serves sophisticated private and institutional clients and the independent asset managers.

Focusing on Asia’s IAMs

Balmelli opens the conversation by immediately zooming in on one of the bank’s key platforms for growth, namely its dedicated service to support the independent wealth community in the region. “This is central to our growth in Singapore and Hong Kong,” he reports, “and we have been hiring enthusiastically at senior levels and CROs to boost growth, as well as introducing a variety of initiatives to make our products, approach and service best-in-class.”

As with competitors across the industry, EFG had to adapt rapidly to remote working practices, and so too in its dealings with the growing ranks of IAM clients. Balmelli reports that the bank managed to open a high number of new accounts since the pandemic struck and significantly ramped up its remote onboarding capabilities and processes.

“With some 80% of the bank in Singapore working from home, the advantages we achieved through digital solutions have really helped both the private clients and the independent firms we work with,” he says. “As far as the IAMs are concerned, it has pretty much been operations as normal, but of course remotely, with more video conferencing and some physical meetings where possible. As we learned from the words of Charles Darwin, it is the capacity to adapt that secures survival more than sheer strength.”

Independence days

The development of the IAM segment is one of the bank’s growth initiatives, as indicated in the strategic plan 2019-22, Balmelli reports.

“As the head of our IAM business for the region,” he reports, “I can say that we have a really strong and growing team in Asia, with Singapore headed by Gino Ragazzini and with Kitty Chou heading this segment in Hong Kong since early 2020, when she joined us. Through our global offering and network, we can draw on our expertise and leverage it across many key markets worldwide. In Asia, our key team members have on average some 15 years of experience in working with or for IAMs, so as you might imagine, we offer a truly professional level of expertise and service.”

A global proposition

EFG’s offering for IAMs encompasses a dedicated team of advisors in major financial centres (Switzerland, Luxembourg, Monaco, Miami, Singapore and Hong Kong), providing services for the overall management of IAM’s accounts. They are supported by the bank’s investment, credit, financial planning and corporate finance specialists.

Amongst the key elements of the bank’s IAM proposition, Balmelli reports that the strength of the EFG balance sheet and its liquidity ratios are key factors, as the IAMs need to offer their own private clients that level of superior security for custody, execution and ongoing operational excellence and robustness.

“A strong balance sheet and rigorous focus on risk management mean that EFG is not only one of the best-capitalised Swiss private banks, but we also adhere strictly to our stated commitment to maintaining a low-risk profile and adopting a conservative approach,” Balmelli comments.

Entrepreneurial thinking and customised solutions

‘Bringing entrepreneurial thinking to Swiss private banking’ represents EFG’s unique approach to private banking which puts clients first. The teams think like entrepreneurs to design customised solutions that meet their clients’ individual goals, offering IAMs a non-hierarchical structure and open-door access to key decision-makers for all clients.

“This means we can really offer speed and clarity of decision making for these clients,” Balmelli comments. “Besides myself, also our Singapore CEO Gea Hong Tho and Albert Chiu our Executive Chairman Asia Pacific make themselves easily reachable, and will respond rapidly to complex questions and requirements. We are ready to quickly offer tailored solutions, and cater to our clients’ individual needs. Additionally, we offer our own research, and EFG Asset Management has won multi-awards, it’s offering also being available for IAMs.”

Building the offering

EFG has for some years been putting other pieces of the global and Asia Pacific jigsaw in place to boost its IAM offering. In June 2019, the bank announced plans to enhance its offering for IAMs with a new comprehensive multi-custody platform. The platform, which launched in September that year, has been developed in partnership with AM-One AG, a subsidiary of Swiss FinTech Expersoft Systems AG, which is one of the leading providers of innovative software solutions for asset and wealth managers.

The comprehensive multi-custody platform includes functionalities ranging from client relationship management to portfolio management and reporting, as well as compliance and risk management. As part of the offering, IAMs benefit from an automated custodian data feed from all EFG booking centres as well as access to the bank’s extensive investment solutions service and product offering.

Plus Smart KYC

On top of the AM-One / Expersoft offering, which he says had proved a great advantage, EFG is also rolling out Smart KYC solution, a FinTech offering to assist in IAM account opening and part of the broader ongoing digitisation initiatives.

Balmelli also reports the group has implemented eBanking Pro, boosting that solution to include trades directly in the bank’s system, a feature that will next come to Asia, and that will further improve efficiency and convenience for the IAMs, as they will be able to trade directly on behalf of their clients without contacting the bank.

A wide-angle vision of the region

Looking more broadly at the Asia-wide operations, Balmelli reports that more talent has arrived in recent years to build out certain key country-specific and other businesses. For example, the bank has boosted its Global South Asia and NRI team and its Indonesia CRO team, two key markets for the bank for the future.

The bank’s Asia Pacific region, at the end of 2020 boasted AuM in the region of CHF 31.3 billion, representing around 20% of total AuM.

Key Priorities

Balmelli reports the current focus is on enhancing digitisation, both to improve internal efficiency as well as to increase connectivity with clients.

The second core objective is to boost relevance, for example, by rolling out more offerings and ideas related to climate change, ESG investments, thematic investing, and other initiatives across the world of public and private investments, including equity, fixed income and structured products.

By way of example, he reports that EFG launched its biggest ever managed certificate offering under the banner ‘The Food Revolution’. He explains the certificates represent investments in a variety of underlying companies, all centred on food production and distribution, provided those companies operate in environmentally friendly ways. “That was a huge success” he notes.

Scale and commitment combined

The bank’s leaders believe EFG now has the scale, the capabilities and the necessary talent and the improved platform and technology to further sustain its growth in Asia. Balmelli notes that the bank’s entrepreneurial and highly professional culture is well suited to encourage talented individuals to innovate and to build their book of business, leveraging both regional and global expertise within a dynamic, team-oriented and highly client-centric business culture. “This stands us in great stead to realise the outstanding potential for the bank to further build on its already solid base in the region,” he adds.

Balmelli closes the discussion by noting that EFG in Singapore has moved into new offices on Robinson Road, taking two floors of Robinson 79, a brand new building and thereby modernising and doubling its space. “The decision was taken pre-pandemic,” he reports, “but it stands good today, offers state-of-the-art workspaces and will allow us expand at the pace we are targeting. All in all, we are well positioned for future growth, and we are optimistic about the region’s potential for many years ahead, especially once the pandemic eases.”

Getting Personal with Oliver Balmelli

Balmelli has a German mother and Swiss father, was born in Germany and grew up in the charming lakeside town of Lugano, in the Ticino region, then later moving to Lausanne in the French-speaking region of Switzerland.

He holds a degree in Political Science from the University of Lausanne Switzerland, an MBA from Cass Business School London and a specialisation in Investment Management from the London Business School and attended the Senior Executive Program from Columbia Business School New York. He is also a member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing.

Balmelli has more than two decades of experience as a senior banker and leader of high performing private banking teams. He has actually spent much of his career in Asia since the early days of learning his trade in both Switzerland and London.

He is soon to turn 50 and says he has benefitted from the reduced travel and the time working from home, which has allowed him to spend more time with his wife and their children, now aged 12 and eight, as well as improving his sports activities and exercising more. “I have become a big runner, a good thing to do as I approach the half century,” he reports. “Doing sports on a daily basis is great for all aspects of one’s life. I even managed to join in the virtual San Francisco marathon in December.”

He remarks that in more normal times, the family would be back in Switzerland each year for skiing at the family’s favourite resort of Sedrun, a small village in the east of Switzerland. But no such joy since their last ski trip earlier in 2019.

He does however, plan to fly with the family back to Switzerland for his 50th birthday on July 20, all going well. “We have the tickets, and my wife and I have our vaccinations, so we are good to go and have our fingers firmly crossed to be able to celebrate there with family and friends. Of course, it will be a much smaller celebration than I initially planned, but that will be the first time back home there for almost two years, and I have not seen my parents for almost TWO years, they really miss our children, of course.”