Swiss bank Credit Suisse recently recognised Thailand as a vast source of under-managed wealth, now one local Thai bank has moved to enhance the quality of its relationship and wealth managers.
Thai publication «The Nation» reports that Siam Commercial Bank (SCB) has partnered with the Singapore-based Wealth Management Institute (WMI) to develop an «SCB Wealth Academy» to strengthen the quality of the bank’s relationship managers.
Demographic Changes
Laliphat Toranavikrai, (pictured) Executive Vice President for SCB private-banking relationship-management division, said Thailand was experiencing Southeast Asia's highest growth in the number of wealthy individuals, at 13-14 per cent a year. «Therefore, we have to develop our human resources to serve our customers' sophisticated views on investment.» The demographic of Thailand's high-net-worth individuals is also in flux with many now younger entrepreneurs.
In the past, relationship managers focused on trust, but today client experience is essential, and the bank's relationship managers must know how to ride this global trend. That is why the bank needs a «Wealth Academy».
The bank now serves more than 7,000 SCB Private Banking families and more than 30,000 mass affluent clients. The bank has 100 relationship managers; those serving Private Banking members handle 60-70 each, and those serving mass affluent worked with 150-200 each.
Under the five-year partnership with WMI, Laliphat said the quality of relationship managers would result in growing AUM of its customers, and the bank wants to sustain annual growth of AUM of 15-20 per cent.
Heading Offshore
Laliphat said wealthy clients would migrate their investments from deposits to sophisticated products because regulations for individual investors had eased. The Bank of Thailand now allows certain clients to invest $5 million abroad directly per year.
She added that the weakened pound sterling was making assets in the UK more interesting, with many SCB Private Banking families asking about the possibility of investing in real estate and football clubs in Britain.
Current English Premier League Champions Leicester City are owned by Thai billionaire businessman Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha the founder and CEO of King Power Duty Free, an operator of duty-free shops.
