The fintech boom has reached the traditional private bank Pictet. The Geneva bank may be playing catch-up but it is planning a whole suite of measures.
Client advisors at the prestigious Geneva private bank will soon benefit from more support – on digital channels. At the beginning of 2016 Pictet will provide its Swiss advisors and their clients with a mobile app with which they can track markets and assets and stay in touch with each other.
The plans were revealed by Ramon Arean (left), Pictet’s chief operating officer for the Asia region, in the Hong Kong finance news portal «Asian Private Banker» (paywall). The announcement was anticipated: Pictet has been under increasing pressure to catch up in the area of digital innovation – not least against Swiss competition.
Falling behind
For example Lombard Odier, also based in Geneva, launched the asset management platform E-Merging back in 2009 (the business was recently spun off). UBS and Credit Suisse provide their private bankers with tablets; with UBS Advice (article in German), clients of the bank have been able to track their portfolios since the beginning of the year.
Even the more traditional Zurich bank Julius Bär announced last August that it was carrying out an extensive upgrade of its digital channels for clients.
With all of this fintech activity Pictet, the third largest wealth manager in Switzerland after UBS and Credit Suisse, has clearly fallen behind. Especially in Asia, considered the future market of private banking, which UBS and CS are using as a test market for new digital advances.
Christmas gift for Singapore bankers
This progress across the sector makes the effort required by Pictet to get back in the game all the greater, especially in Asia where the private bank has been established for a long time.
According to Arean, Pictet’s client advisors in Singapore will have their new tool at the end of 2015, making contact with clients and downstream services easier to manage. At the beginning of 2016 the Hong Kong location will be kitted out ahead of the planned introduction of the Pictet app in Asia in the second half of the year.
Special attention to onboarding
«The future of Pictet and technology lies at the client front,» Arean told «Asian Private Banker». But there is more to it than that.
Together with an outside partner the Geneva bank is fine-tuning a solution to simplify the complicated process of ‘onboarding’ new clients. The goal is to automate as much as possible. Arean aims to be in a position to offer automated tax declarations in Asia as soon as next year.
If the bank manages that, other private banks may soon be watching Pictet with interest.
