WHAT INNOVATION MEANS TO PRIVATE BANKING
Sunday, November 30, 2008 at 11:08PM WHAT INNOVATION MEANS TO PRIVATE BANKING
by Mark Ellis Leaders Speak
The importance of investment banking is going to diminish, while the focus on capturing wealth is going to increase. In Australia, while there has been significant growth in investment in superannuation, the private banking sector has remained largely undeveloped.
Generally, we identify customer requirements through a regular quality survey, and this helps design the right wealth tiers and products appropriate to those tiers. Right now, we have 10,000 clients but with a total market size of up to 160,000 private banking customers in Australia there is significant growth potential in the Australian market place.
Best practice in private banking is found offshore. We have learnt to emulate some of these practices by analysing our client base more deeply. For example, someone earning $250,000 a year has a significantly different wealth and investment profile and requirements compared with an individual who earns $2 million per annum. So it's all about understanding our customers better, understanding the various wealth profiles and creating the right investment vehicles for the different wealth tiers.
Similarly we have found that investor traits are affected by geography. Clients in Western Australia have significantly different investor requirements to clients in New South Wales or Victoria. Likewise, in Australia we find that our clients are different from private banking clients in the UK, where customers want everybody to know that they bank with a private
bank. In Australia, it's different. Customers want a Coutts standard of personal service without the extravagance. With this in mind, we have developed a private banking suite in Double Bay with a world class ratio of four bankers to 30 clients. The suite was created after comprehensive market research and focus groups, and it creates a significant point of difference for ANZ Private Bank from its competitors.
- Mark Ellis, CEO, ANZ Private Bank
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