Credit Suisse's top Asian banker Helman Sitohang is cool on hiring more private bankers in the region, saying the Swiss bank instead wants to make better use of what it already has. finews.asia explains how.
The Zurich-based bank's workforce of 590 private bankers held steady at year-end. Credit Suisse would need a massive hiring push if it wants to hit the target set by CEO Tidjane Thiam three years ago, for roughly 800 private bankers this year.
But the bank has cooled on that target – or any target at all, as a matter of fact – regional head Helman Sitohang said following Credit Suisse's fourth-quarter loss.
«We are less focused on how many relationship manager bankers or bankers per se we have,» the Indonesian native told a media briefing. «We feel we have the right-sized teams, obviously there are opportunities to grow, and we’ll continue to grow, but the number of relationship managers per se is not a target for us.»
Combined Forces
The fact that Credit Suisse has finally dropped the unrealistic hard target is less of a surprise than how the bank plans to squeeze more revenue and productivity out of its existing advisor force – by making investment bankers and wealth managers work more closely together.
«The combination of our relationship managers that we have in the private bank as well as the bankers we have in our investment bank, the numbers are actually several hundred, should provide a very unique combined force of being kind of the client generator across the platform, especially in the entrepreneur and ultra-high net worth segment,» Sitohang, an engineer by training, said.
The formula is one increasingly employed by private banks in order to get a leg up with big, family-controlled firms. The internal tie-ups often have to be underpinned with financial incentives, because both investment bankers as well as private bankers are protective of their clients.
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