Credit Suisse has launched its digital private banking platform in Hong Kong with the release of an enhanced Private Banking Asia Pacific app. The digital platform provides a new multi-channel service delivery model which is expected to be a key driver of business growth. The app is available to regional clients with accounts in Hong Kong, equipped with English and new Chinese language capabilities, accessible across multiple devices including iPad, iPhone, web browsers, with Android users being able to access the platform via web browsers.
The launch is part of a planned expansion of the bank's enhanced investor access to portfolio analytics, research and market data, collaboration and transaction services including trading in structured products and exchange-traded funds (ETFs), starting in Asia Pacific, according to a Credit Suisse spokesperson.
"At the moment, our Private Banking clients in Asia who have accounts booked in Hong Kong can use the digital platform to trade equities, spot foreign exchange and FX forwards," said the official. "For those with accounts booked in Singapore, they can use the digital platform to trade securities including equities, but also ETFs and REITs, spot foreign exchange and FX forwards.
At the moment, clients are not able to access structured products on digital platform, but as it continues to enhance its digital channel the Swixx bank will be looking into "expanding the products and solutions that clients can access digitally, in compliance with any regulatory guidelines".Hong Kong is one of the fastest growing hubs for the bank's private banking business as well as a hotbed of consumer adoption of digital solutions across many products and services, according to Francois Monnet (pictured), Credit Suisse's head of private banking Greater China who also leads the development of the digital private banking project.
"Digital technology is rapidly changing the way people use financial services, they are increasingly using digital channels to contact their banks, execute trades and purchase financial products," said Monnet, in a statement. "As a leading global wealth manager, Credit Suisse is making significant investments in digital technology to capture this opportunity and deepen the relationship with our current and next generation of private banking clients and help drive the growth of our business across the region."
Credit Suisse's new digital platform will provide investors in Hong Kong with round-the-clock access to comprehensive information about their accounts, market insights and intelligence personalized according to their portfolios, tools to analyse their risk exposure across portfolios while equipping them with trading tools to respond to moving markets. The new digital private banking solution also facilitates multiple channels of connectivity and collaboration for clients with their relationship manager and Credit Suisse team.
The key features of the Credit Suisse Private Banking app include a portfolio overview (at-a-glance overviews of portfolio valuations, available funds to invest, asset and currency allocations, income and expenditure, and historical transaction and cash activities); a watchlist (to monitor selected instruments across asset classes); a market overview (an overview of global and regional markets news, major indices, financial instruments and company information, and latest global asset classes performances across currencies, bonds and commodities); insights (access to the library of Credit Suisse Investment Strategy and Research publications and videos); and collaboration (a built-in suite of collaboration tools that facilitate connections between clients and the Credit Suisse team, including instant messaging, audio and video call, screen and document sharing and document annotations.)
In addition, the new app will allow trading of equity-linked product, spot foreign exchange and FX forwards, as well as provide a portfolio risk analyser, enabling clients to track their risk exposures across their portfolios, comparing this to their risk profile, to view the top risk contributors within their portfolios, as well as simulate how their portfolios might have performed during historical market event scenarios such as Black Monday of 1987, the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997 and the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 among others.
Investors using the Credit Suisse app will also be able to access user-configured notifications to keep up to date on the status of trade activities and also market data events such as price movements or rating changes.
Credit Suisse's initial digital private banking platform was first rolled out in Singapore in March 2015. According to the Swiss bank, more than12 months of client usage analysis and usability testing has culminated in an enhanced version of the app the bank is launching in Hong Kong, with a brand new design and client user interface as well as additional language capabilities.
According to Monnet, Asia Pacific has some of the biggest and most rapidly expanding wealth pools in the world, and the launch of a digitalized multi-channel service delivery model will redesign the way in which the bank "interacts with and curates content" for its clients. "It is not just an enhancement to the client experience, but a transformation of our private banking service model," stated Monnet.
Credit Suisse has marketed over 130 structured products in Hong Kong although it has not issued any new products since February 2016. The Swiss bank marketed 24 products in 2015 worth an estimated US$315m. Year to date, Credit Suisse has issued four products in Hong Kong worth US$53m.
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