Standard Bank Group's Stanbic IBTC Bank is offering access to onshore and offshore transactional banking products, as well as structured investment, wealth management products (including advisory, trust, fiduciary) and stockbroking services through a new premium service aimed at its high net worth investors in Nigeria and globally.
The new platinum banking premium service will provide an additional value propositions for high net worth individuals who desire an "exclusive and differentiated banking service experience", according to Babatunde Macaulay (pictured), executive director, personal and business banking at Stanbic IBTC Bank.
"The current environment in the country (inflation, unstable currency exchange rates, limited availability of forex, etc) has seen high net worth customers seek higher returns for their naira as well as foreign currency," said Macaulay. "Stanbic IBTC group asset management expertise in money market investments, which includes naira- and foreign currency-denominated mutual fund products, has attracted huge patronage, as customers find a balance in good yield coupled with assured safety for their fund."
According to Macalulay, structured products are "quite common" in the Nigerian market (especially among retail investors), as banks typically adopt a push sales strategy using products to attract customers. "However, Stanbic IBTC differs in its approach, as we prefer to view customers using segment parameters to reduce incidents of misselling," said Macaulay. "We have few products within customer segments to reflect the needs of the customer profile in question."
The bank hosted some of its private banking clients in early July in Abuja and in Lagos to formalise the launch of the new value proposition, which leverages on "both Stanbic Group and Standard Bank end to end financial services, as well as over 154 years' experience across Africa".
Embedded in the new value proposition are 'lifestyle privileges, wealth and investment services and advisory, onshore and offshore banking, access to lending services, transactional banking products, and legacy services', according to the bank.
"We are well-positioned to provide customised solutions for even the most complex customer needs," said Macaulay, adding that structured products play an important role within the overall offering for private banking investors. "We are very flexible here as we note the need for customisation to fit the peculiar needs of each high net worth clients in private banking. We, however, have the unique advantage offered by our group both in-country and offshore to draw on products spanning the bank, asset management, pension and retirement planning, bancassurance, trusteeship and offshore banking businesses to fulfil the needs of private banking clients."
Standard Bank Group has marketed over 2,800 retail structured products, mostly sold in South Africa (2,664 products), but also in the UK (134 structured deposits), the offshore market (40 products), Hong Kong (21 products) and Nigeria (one open-ended CPPI product).
The bank has around 1,800 live structured notes, over 850 live structured deposits and 58 offshore deposits. The top three underlyings offered by Standard Bank Group are the FTSE/JSE Africa Top 40 index, FTSE/JSE Resources 10 Index, and FTSE/JSE Financial 15 Index / FTSE/JSE Industrial 25 Index.
In a keynote presentation at the launch of the initiative, Steven Barrow, head of G10 research and strategy, global market at Standard Bank, said that economic recovery and growth in Nigeria should appreciate by at least one per cent and 2.5 per cent in 2017 and 2018 respectively, largely aided by steady oil prices and higher production levels and ongoing diversification efforts of the government.
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