Frank Troise (pictured), Leonteq Securities' managing director and head of digital distribution for Asia has left the Swiss bank. Troise's position was a new role created by Leonteq in the second quarter of 2016, which he held while also spearheading the Teqlabs innovation lab facility launched last year in partnership with Singapore's Economic Development Board (EDB).
Based in Singapore, Troise was responsible for developing and expanding the bank's fintech offering and digital distribution across the region through its three major business divisions: structured solutions, pension solutions, and partners & platform development. Troise reported to Jeremy Ng, chief executive of Leonteq in Singapore, who replaced David Schmid, after the latter was appointed head of investment & banking solutions division in 2016 to lead sales globally.
Troise's exit is the latest high profile departure from Leonteq and comes after Jan Schoch, chief executive officer stated in the 2016 results report in February that the bank had been 'too optimistic as to how quickly it could implement new partnerships and drive the corresponding revenues' and that 'personnel and other growth measures undertaken in parallel resulted in an inflated cost base'. According to Schoch, the company's board and management have initiated 'decisive actions' to restore 'profitability and credibility'.
Troise is a recognised fintech expert who has built, and sold, several financial service companies. He started at ABB Financial Services, where he was a proprietary trader for interest rate and currency arbitrage in global multi-billion dollar portfolios, and developed the company's risk management tools and quantitative trading models. Troise then became one of the leading experts in value-at-risk in the US for some of the largest institutional investors at a leading investment consulting companies, such as Wilshire Associates.
In November 2016, Troise co-founded Replication Technologies, a portfolio replication company which publishes signals from a proprietary system that tracks the exact holdings of the world's leading active fund managers. He is also an advisor to several fintech companies in South East Asia, for which he maintains institutional investment client relationships as a chief investment officer.
Leonteq's digital strategy will continue to be led by Christian Kronseder, Leonteq's head of digital distribution, and his deputy Jonathan Llamas, from Zurich, according to a spokesman for the bank.
Leonteq made the headlines in mid-2016 after reporting a combination of significantly lower revenues and substantially increased costs, with the its senior management moving to 'set clear priorities and (..) decisive actions, including additional cost saving measures, to restore profitability'. 2017 is expected to be a transitional year 'with a view to further scale the business and exploit further growth potential'.
Priorities for 2017, include 'improving the cooperation with existing partners in order to resolve operational issues and on-boarding of new partners; implementing additional cost saving measures to control the cost base while continuing to invest selectively into the business; increasing efficiency and profitability by reducing non-profitable businesses and further enhancing automation; and optimizing capital usage in light of upcoming regulations and continued growth of platform assets'.
The Swiss bank is also expected to cut loose a number of executives this year as part of its cost reduction programme announced in December 2016. Despite its troubles, Leonteq launched recently a cooperation agreement in the area of structured investment products with Crédit Agricole Corporate and Investment Bank, in which the French bank will use Leonteq's technology to customise and distribute structured products, and a cooperation partnership with Swiss cantonal bank Aargauische Kantonalbank.
Related stories:
Leonteq's head of structured products sales for private banks in Apac departs
Leonteq and Crédit Agricole CIB rollout cooperation agreement
Leonteq pushes digital distribution in Asia
Leonteq pushes platform development roadmap amid reorganisation
Leonteq halts planned market entries in UK, Norway, Finland, China and Korea, targets Japan