Credit Suisse Launches Enhanced Digital Private Banking in Hong Kong

Credit Suisse today launched its award-winning digital private banking platform in Hong Kong with the release of an enhanced Private Banking Asia Pacific app. The digital platform creates a new multi-channel service delivery model combining a digital and direct client experience which will be a key driver of business growth. The app is available to regional clients with accounts in Hong Kong, equipped with English and new Chinese language capabilities, accessible across multiple devices including iPad, iPhone, web browsers, with Android users being able to access the platform via web browsers.

Credit Suisse’s initial digital private banking platform was first rolled out in Singapore in March 2015. More than12 months of client usage analysis and usability testing has culminated in an enhanced version of the app the bank is launching in Hong Kong today, with a brand new design and client user interface as well as additional language capabilities.

Francois Monnet, Credit Suisse’s Head of Private Banking Greater China who also leads the development of the digital private banking project, said, “We are delighted to launch an enhanced version of our Private Banking Asia Pacific app for our Hong Kong wealth management hub, building on the experience and learnings accumulated in the past year following the Singapore roll out. Hong Kong is one of the fastest growing hubs for our Private Banking business as well as a hotbed of consumer adoption of digital solutions across many products and services. Digital technology is rapidly changing the way people use financial services, they are increasingly using digital channels to contact their banks, execute trades and purchase financial products. As a leading global wealth manager, Credit Suisse is making significant investments in digital technology to capture this opportunity and deepen the relationship with our current and next generation of private banking clients and help drive the growth of our business across the region.”

“Asia Pacific has some of the biggest and most rapidly expanding wealth pools in the world. A digitalized multi-channel service delivery model will bring the relationship manager and bank significant gains in efficiency and higher value-added productivity, and most important of all, enable us to serve our clients better and cultivate deeper client relationships. In rolling out our digital private banking capabilities, we are redesigning the way in which we interact with and curate content for our clients. It is not just an enhancement to the client experience, but a transformation of our private banking service model.”

According to a 2014 survey¹, 38% of High Net Worth Individuals in Asia feel that digital contact with their wealth manager is more important that direct contact, while 83% of them said that they are far more likely to leave wealth management firms that cannot offer an integrated digital and direct channel experience.

Credit Suisse’s new digital platform empowers clients with round-the-clock access to comprehensive information about their accounts, market insights and intelligence personalized according to their portfolios, tools to analyze their risk exposure across portfolios while equipping them with trading tools to respond to moving markets. The new digital private banking solution also facilitates multiple channels of connectivity and collaboration for clients with their relationship manager and Credit Suisse team.

The key features of the Credit Suisse Private Banking app include:

• Portfolio Overview: At-a-glance overviews of portfolio valuations, available funds to invest, asset and currency allocations, income and expenditure, and historical transaction and cash activities
• Watchlist: A watchlist that helps clients monitor their selected instruments across asset classes
• Markets: An overview of global and regional markets news, major indices, financial instruments and company information, and latest global asset classes performances across currencies, bonds and commodities
• Insights: Access to the library of Credit Suisse Investment Strategy and Research publications and videos
• Collaboration: A built-in suite of collaboration tools that facilitate connections between clients and the Credit Suisse team, including instant messaging, audio and video call, screen and document sharing and document annotations.
• Trade: Ability to trade equities, spot foreign exchange and FX forwards
• Portfolio Risk Analyzer: A tool allowing clients to proactively track their risk exposures across their portfolios, comparing this to their risk profile, to view the top risk contributors within their portfolios, as well as simulate how their portfolios might have performed during historical market event scenarios such as Black Monday of 1987, the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997 and the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 among others.
• Notifications: User-configured notifications to keep clients updated on the status of their trade activities and also market data events such as price movements or rating changes.
• Quick Access: A user-friendly security feature for iPhone users whereby clients can log in using Apple’s TouchID feature in lieu of entering their username and password, allowing clients to have faster access to view an initially limited level of information including market data and news, their portfolio performance and their watchlist.

Innovation Hub – agile approach to developing technology solutions

Credit Suisse set up an Innovation Hub in Singapore in 2014 as an incubation center to foster new technology solutions, where a team of around 200 employees and technology vendors work closely to develop and deliver the digital private banking platform, adopting the agile approach inspired by successful technology companies. They constantly prioritize and refine the product development process listening to feedback from clients and colleagues, launching new functionality releases in short cycles, often delivering working software every two weeks. This incremental approach allows the team to constantly test and improve the features and continually enhance the capabilities and functionalities going forward.

Building digital private banking with clients

Credit Suisse has also adopted a highly client-centric approach in partnering and engaging with clients to define the value proposition, features and user experience. Instead of looking at its clients by their assets under management or source of wealth, the bank analyzed how they make decisions in relation to their finances. Credit Suisse identified that the majority of its private banking clients in Asia Pacific are what it describes as “validators”, that is those who want to understand investment opportunities and trade-offs to validate with their advisors, who think in the mid- to long-term and appreciate support in understanding global markets and refining their views and ideas.

Mr. Monnet said, “We designed, developed and prioritized the features of our first product release based on what these clients expect from our bank and our digital offering. We fully engaged with our clients through more than 100 in-depth one-on-one ‘Voice of the Client’ sessions held with across the region including in Greater China, and their feedback shaped the way we developed and constantly refined the digital private banking app. We also held many ’Voice of the Business‘ sessions with more than 80 members from the relationship management teams, to get their views, expectations and feedback throughout the process of developing these capabilities.”

Mr. Monnet pointed out, “Our data and analytics over the past year from Singapore have indeed shown that we have delivered a digital solution that meets many of our clients’ aspirations in terms of functionality and usability. As a result, the number of clients using the digital channel has increased almost thirty times. They are logging in more often – at all times of the day and night and on average are spending more time on each visit. They are using the platform to access and understand investment opportunities and ideas, and are empowered to act on market opportunities through the trading tool anytime at their convenience. We are confident that the new digital platform will bring significant benefits and efficiencies to all our regional clients whose assets are managed in our Hong Kong hub.”

As a testament to the bank’s leadership in rolling out digital private banking, Credit Suisse has garnered several industry awards in the past year including the 8th Private Banker International Greater China Awards 2016 “Most Effective Wealth Management Technology Platform in Greater China”, PWM/The Banker Global Private Banking Awards 2015 “Best Initiative of the year in Client Facing Technology”, Private Banker International 2015 “Outstanding Wealth Management Technology Initiative” and the Asian Private Banker Awards 2015 “Best Private Bank – Digital Innovations”.

About Credit Suisse AG

Credit Suisse AG is one of the world’s leading financial services providers and is part of the Credit Suisse group of companies (referred to here as ‘Credit Suisse’). As an integrated bank, Credit Suisse offers clients its combined expertise in the areas of private banking, investment banking and asset management. Credit Suisse provides advisory services, comprehensive solutions and innovative products to companies, institutional clients and high-net-worth private clients globally, as well as to retail clients in Switzerland. Credit Suisse is headquartered in Zurich and operates in over 50 countries worldwide. The group employs approximately 48,100 people. The registered shares (CSGN) of Credit Suisse’s parent company, Credit Suisse Group AG, are listed in Switzerland and, in the form of American Depositary Shares (CS), in New York. Further information about Credit Suisse can be found at www.credit-suisse.com.