SCB PRIVATE BANKING on track to becoming Thailand's private banking leader, embracing three strategic thrusts and promoting "Beat the Benchmark" concept

Thursday 04 March 2021 15:36
SCB PRIVATE BANKING continues to embrace the wealth management business as its corporate strategy driving growth and replacing traditional income. As one of the bank's key businesses, SCB PRIVATE BANKING emphasizes increasing income from investments. As part of its effort to expand the market, the "Beat the Benchmark" concept will be employed through three key pillars: 1) Wealth Preservation utilizing a wide range of products and teams of professional personal investment finance advisors to grow wealth; 2) Wealth Creation using business consulting services to generate wealth from every new investment opportunity identified with strengthening liquidity; and 3) The SCB Financial Group synergizing the SCB Group's professional teams that are well equipped with knowledge, expertise, and experience covering finance, investments, and conducting business. Optimizing its service capabilities, offering superior service standards, and allowing customers to enjoy the highest returns on investment portfolios suitable for their risk appetite will pave the way to SCB PRIVATE BANKING winning its customers' hearts and set a new standard for winning private banking customers in Thailand, leading to AUM reaching one trillion baht by the end of 2023.

In revealing its latest strategic move, Siam Commercial Bank President Mr. Sarut Ruttanaporn revealed that "Overall wealth around the world is forecast to grow over 7% CAGR from 2018 to 2024, especially in China and the Asia Pacific countries.1 The wealth business in Thailand is likely to continue growing steadily, with a forecast that assets are likely to grow by 5% per year, especially among high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs)2. Realizing opportunities from market growth and from being Thailand's top-ranked financial institution with a customer base of over 16 million and being a Top Three bank in terms of deposits allows SCB to extend its wealth management business even further and help design financial plans for customers to the fullest extent. And most importantly, the wealth management business is one of the bank's corporate strategies for creating sustainable growth, replacing traditional sectors."

"We have been implementing our Wealth Transformation plan since 2017. In 2020, SCB Wealth's business demonstrated revenue against both investment and insurance businesses, generating over 15% of the bank's revenues, or 56% of fee-based income. With its strong advisory capabilities, the Bank has set its wealth business goal for the next three years under a "Beat the Benchmark" concept, prioritizing the confidence and trust our customers have placed in us. We will therefore be fully committed to focusing on providing portfolio management advice, product selection, and investment solutions capable of beating the market and generating the best returns. "In addition, we are determined to continue developing our wealth management approaches to increase the capability of our advisory service and raise the bar for our services to generate even better returns on investment for SCB Wealth customers and Thai investors. Our efforts will set a new benchmark for the wealth management business. SCB's major goal is to become 'Number One' in the hearts of our wealth segment customers, and play an important role in fostering social responsibility by providing Thais with access to knowledge, understanding, and appropriate financial and investment products and services," added Mr. Sarut Ruttanaporn.

Siam Commercial Bank Senior Executive Vice President & Chief Wealth Banking Officer Mr. Narong Srichukrin said, "Currently, SCB Wealth has a base of over 300,000 customers, divided into three main groups: SCB PRIME for customers with assets of 2-10 million baht; SCB FIRST for customers with assets of 10-50 million baht; and the SCB PRIVATE BANKING Group for customers having assets of 50 million baht or more. SCB Wealth has over two trillion baht in assets under management (AUM). In response to the bank's corporate strategy aiming to drive the wealth management business as one of the key businesses creating sustainable growth for the Bank, since 2017 we have embarked upon a Wealth Transformation Plan to create a new foundation for the wealth management business by focusing on building advisory capability along with adjustments to our operating model. This effort allows us to offer investment products and solutions on an Open Architecture platform specially curated from over 35 investment and insurance partners, leaving more investment options for our clients. These efforts will create satisfactory returns and can increase wealth even further. In addition, we are also focusing on upskilling our Relationship Managers (RMs), providing them with the latest knowledge and the ability to provide professional investment advice to the fullest extent. The move underscores the Bank's important role as a "Trusted Partner". This foundation has been well proven, with SCB's wealth management revenues growing over 25% by the end of 2020. SCB Wealth's core strategy in 2021 will focus on the growth of the SCB PRIVATE BANKING segment, revealing a new look for its PRIVATE BANKING business with a team of experts delivering a full spectrum of investment advisory services."

Dr. Metinee Jongsaliswang, First Executive Vice President & Head of SCB PRIVATE BANKING

noted, "2020 has been a challenging year. The global investment and finance markets have experienced high volatility and fierce competition in the private banking business, with each institution bringing in financial solutions and wealth management experts to take care of their high net-worth clients. SCB PRIVATE BANKING has experienced stellar results over the past year, with net asset value under management (AUM) of over 850 billion baht. Excluding deposits, investment AUM stood at roughly 570 billion baht, with return on investment for portfolio management as high as 14.9% during a one-year period (1 January - 31 December 2020), higher than the rate of return for a medium-risk investment as defined by the Association of Investment Management Companies (AIMC)3. This was a result of the change from a service-led to advisory-led relationship with personalized asset allocation and investment plans to increase opportunities for generating greater returns based on customers' risk tolerance. This year, SCB PRIVATE BANKING will embrace three core strategies that will be the key to success in business operations, comprising:

  1. Investment Solutions for Wealth Preservation: Growing personal wealth even further with a team of professional personal investment and finance advisors arranging investment portfolios that are quick to adapt to changing situations, through data intelligence and optimization tools and a comprehensive range of financial products and services. Clients can keep up with market and economic situations with products from the Open Architecture platform, allowing access to all kinds of local and international investments and a wide variety of over 10,000 securities and funds, both public and private. Currently, the platform connects 19 fund managers in Thailand and 23 major markets around the world. The Discretionary Portfolio Management approach allows the best returns for customers.
  2. Business Solutions for Wealth Creation: A comprehensive business consulting service focusing on creating wealth in every investment opportunity as never before, with new, versatile, and efficient solutions to enhance liquidity or generate new money for customers, such as the SCB Property-Backed Loan launched at the end of 2020 to increase cash flow. These solutions will ensure that customers will never miss any investment opportunity.
  3. The SCB Financial Business Group offers strong synergy in terms of knowledge and expertise to keep customers abreast of investments and businesses for their optimal benefits. SCB PRIVATE BANKING represents all the financial business groups of Siam Commercial Bank combined to enhance wealth management experience and returns for customers in every channel.

"One of SCB's main goals is to expand the private banking customer base together with each of our new milestones, along with our commitment to develop a full range of financial products and services and comprehensive business consulting services by our professional advisory teams taking advantage of the strength of the SCB Group. It is expected that SCB PRIVATE BANKING's three strategic pillars that will continue developing on an ongoing basis for service optimization will help drive outstanding achievements, with AUM reaching one trillion baht in 3 years and the best possible returns on investments suitable for customers' risk profiles, leading to new benchmark to win a special place in the hearts of our private banking customers in Thailand. These efforts will allow SCB to eventually become Thailand's private banking leader," concluded Dr. Metinee Jongsaliswang

Source: Siam Commercial Bank