Our dedication to our role as a wealth advisor is of the highest level and we are firmly committed to educating and advising our clients on navigating the volatile wealth landscape. This is our promise to our clients.
Jason
CEO, Bank of Singapore
At Bank of Singapore, our mission is to be Asia's top private bank.
To do so, our commitment is to be a trusted advisor to our clients as their primary private bank for all their investments and wealth management needs, providing them with the best advice and a premier platform that opens doors to services and products they may not have accessed before. In this way, we can achieve our goal of being a top private bank that is rooted in Asia but global in perspective.
In 2024, we have made strides towards that aim. We embraced a bank-wide journey of transformation in a challenging environment dominated by volatile markets and geopolitical tensions, and uncertainty and interest rate cuts. Our assets under management (AUM) grew and we experienced continued growth of net new money from our core markets.
Particularly, we saw good growth in two key client segments – ultra-high net worth individuals and financial intermediaries. Both recorded double-digit growth in AUM. This is an affirmation of our sharpened focus in these segments.
We expanded our suite of products and services for ultra-high net worth individuals and, importantly, elevated our engagement with them and their next generation.
A bespoke next-generation programme 'Future Wealth Executive Programme' was rolled out in partnership with Singapore Management University and Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management.
The programme provided the next generation of these investors with a strong foundation, covering areas such as entrepreneurship, business succession planning and family offices. Our aim is to help them chart their own course with purpose and passion. This is part of a broader next-generation programme anchored on three key pillars — Education (knowledge sharing), Investments (tailoring solutions relevant to them) and Community (networking purposes).
As expected, we are seeing a great wealth transfer in Asia. I firmly believe that Bank of Singapore has what it takes to serve every generation with our global expertise.
In our view, there is vast potential in the financial intermediary segment. Across the industry, we have seen a significant growth in the number of financial intermediaries, also known as independent asset managers, being set up to serve high net worth individuals over the last six to seven years.
Against this backdrop, private banks like ours must embrace financial intermediaries as a core component of the ecosystem. At Bank of Singapore, we see them as strategic partners and a key pillar of our strategy. In fact, the financial intermediary segment has been one of our fastest growing areas in the last three years. We are focused on delivering value to them by developing unique and wider offerings amid adopting an institutionalised servicing approach.
The roll-out of an alternative investment digital platform — FIM Alternatives Select — which is the first of such scale by a private bank in Asia, is one such example. Through the platform, we are making it easier for our financial intermediary partners to augment the strength of their client portfolios with alternative investment opportunities and achieve their wealth objectives.
Funds from leading global asset managers such as KKR and The Carlyle Group are among those that are made available on the FIM Alternatives Select.
Adding alternatives to portfolios
When it comes to investment solutions, we continue to see an increasing interest in alternatives such as private markets, hedge funds and direct investments across all our client segments. Clients recognise that the benefits of adding alternative solutions with lower correlations to traditional asset classes will help improve portfolio resilience, especially in today's volatile environment.
To cater to this increased demand, we have expanded our ecosystem of leading partners and broadened our suite of solutions. We were able to offer exclusive access to private credit opportunities in Europe and Asia as yield-seeking investors look for private credit solutions that help them diversify away from public and traditional fixed-income exposure.
As a result of these efforts, we saw a strong momentum in alternative investments and recorded more than 80% year-on-year growth in inflows.
Go-to bank for world-class thought leadership
We have doubled down on our efforts to build intellectual capital and thought leadership to augment our research, advisory and portfolio management capabilities. Against the backdrop of an increasingly complex and fragmented world, investors need quality advice and ready access to deep global perspectives more than ever, to effectively navigate the volatile investment landscape.
With that in mind, we brought together a diverse group of renowned experts to form the Bank of Singapore CIO Global Advisory Council. A first-of-its-kind by a private bank in Asia, the members come from think tanks such as Peterson Institute of International Economics and Milken Institute, as well as KKR and Blackstone.
Bank of Singapore's CIO Global Advisory Council comprises renowned experts across diverse fields and is the first-of-its-kind by a private bank in Asia.
Winning the 'Best Chief Investment Office in Private Banking in Asia' at The PWM & The Banker Global Private Banking Awards 2024 affirms our commitment to building up intellectual capital, as well as the confidence and trust that our clients have in us.
Later this year, we will be unveiling a systematic, robust and risk-based multi-asset allocation framework that is proprietary to Bank of Singapore. It will be used to guide our clients as they build long-term investment portfolios.
Positioning ourselves for the future
The private banking industry is facing seismic changes. Coupled with the evolving geopolitical environment, it is imperative that we continue to have a razor-sharp focus on the fundamentals and build on our value proposition to capture the opportunities.
In the coming years, we will work to enhance and grow our platform to serve our clients — both on our product and services offerings and human capital.
One of the initiatives that we have embarked on to enhance our platform is a three-year client lifecycle management roadmap aimed at transforming the client experience at every stage – from prospecting and digital onboarding to periodic reviews – with the use of technologies such as machine learning and generative AI.
Deepening our already robust talent pool and developing the existing ones is another area that the management team and I pay particular attention to. Our stellar track record in attracting the best talent in the industry has not gone unnoticed by our peers. This is no doubt a result of our people-focused culture and strong brand reputation. To myself and my team, people remain firmly at the centre of our strategy because we believe the human element remains an invaluable aspect of private banking.
Strengthening the One Group collaboration will remain high on our agenda as we double down on offering a comprehensive suite of financial solutions (from corporate and commercial banking to treasury and insurance) through the OCBC Group's network. This will be vital in our pursuit to be the private bank of choice especially for the ultra-high net worth investors.
Will we be Asia's top private bank in years to come? I firmly believe so. Our dedication to our role as a wealth advisor is of the highest level and we are firmly committed to educating and advising our clients on navigating the volatile wealth landscape.
This is our promise to our clients.