Sunday, 1 September 2013

Private banking ensures a high standard.

The potential growth of banking products such as "premium" and "Private" is 50% per year. While their main products are deposits, but some more complex services are beginning to be in demand. The competition to enter the market of private market starts to gather pace.

The concept of private banking came, of course, from Switzerland, a few years ago, VIP-regional financial services were a pale shadow of what the Swiss bankers were offering to their clients.  In the Western sense is not just a service in a separate office with leather chairs: it is primarily the management of financial assets and the protection of their client's anonymity. In addition, partners and managers in traditional private banks in Switzerland,  take the risk of the bankruptcy by providing a legal consent to sell their property in an auction in contrast to the classical joint-stock bank in which their risks are limited to the contribution of the share capital.


The traditional private bank in Russia, and especially at the regional level, has a difficulty - if only because, neither bankers nor clients are not prepared to risk all their state. Therefore southern private banking began with the VIP-offices, where successful businessmen could deposit some of their wealth  with a higher interest rate than a market one. Today the trust in banks has increased, and the bankers themselves started to be more inovative. "At the present time, the managers of the financial assets in our bank in the regions are able to form an individual investment, credit and  savings strategy for a particular client according to his personal preferences, goals and plans for the future" - the regional director of the Southern Branch of Rosbank Evdokia Maloglovets describes a typical scheme of cooperation with wealthy clients in the South. And although the big businessmen in Russia still will not keep all of their money in one basket, a substantial portion of their finances still remain here.


Banks are trying to attract their interest not only by providing a higher return on their capital, but also in services at the intersection of financial counseling and personal assistance. In fact, a person with the account of several million rubles is already an "honored guest" at the bank. He will offered a customized program of savings, credit cards: the Premium or Platinum, an individual manager who would be willing to provide financial advice, and, of course, the service in the VIP-hall. In different banks such category of clients is called differently: just VIP, upper middle, etc. In Raiffeisenbank, for example, a customer category premium «start» from one million rubles. But by crossing a certain line, the client falls into the category of "wealthy", and then usually offered products and services even at the regional level are becoming more and more "Swiss".

Evdokia Maloglovets notes that the interests of the wealthy Russian clients in the use of banking products and solutions (both for privacy and for business) in recent years have changed considerably. "Clients started to actively apply new technologies of remote banking, also the access to the world financial markets has expanded  - says Ms. Maloglovets.  Accordingly, the attention of wealthy customers is  growing  just to those financial institutions where there are competent professionals and established business processes. " In other words, the Russian customers are ready to ask the bankers to think a little bit for them, and not just to carry out their own instructions for moving and storage of financial assets.

Director of Private Banking Office VTB24 Natalia Nosova said that the minimum amount of input in the private banking is the equivalent of 500,000 dollars. "The client can not only choose different conditions of allocation of funds for the special premium rates - explains Ms. Nosov. - Important advantages are the status area of ​​access and privacy. VIP-clients are served in a separate office, which is located in the city center, while the upper middle category of customers use the services of  personal managers in the retail bank offices. " VTB 24  ensures complete confidentiality of client information: the bank employees who are not directly involved with certain clients are not able to monitor their private account information. In Raiffeisenbank entry threshold in the category of private banking is already 500 thousand euros, in  Nomos-Bank of Moscow and St. Petersburg, it is 15 million rubles, for other regions - 10 million rubles. Regional banks are slightly more loyal: the threshold of entry into the segment of "premium" in the bank "Center-invest" - a term deposit of 500 thousand rubles. VIP-clients with the deposit amount of 3,000,000 rubles receive additional free services. "This individual rental deposit box in the VIP-zone, consulting from a qualified tax professional, including the preparation of tax returns immediately, protected parking place at the time of service of the bank and a telephone communication with the VIP-manager - lists Gregory Zhukov, Chairman of the Board of Directors of  "Center-invest". - In addition, children and grandchildren of VIP-clients have the opportunity to pass a two-day training course "Secrets of banking excellence. '"  To become a VIP-client in the bank "Kuban Credit", you need to place funds in the amount of five million rubles, or the equivalent in foreign currency. "The customer receives a number of advantages, such as individual terms of deposits and loans, improved foreign exchange rates, a personal care manager on all financial matters and more  "- said Anton Nichvidyuk, director of the additional office of " Victoria bank".

 But the main difference between a very big customer and just a big customer  is in the degree of differentiation and the depth of the bank integration in the client's life.-says Anton Nichvidyuk, the bank acts as a personal financial assistant: "During our work in addition to the usual banking services we provide assistance to our clients in solving a variety of problems, ranging from assistance in obtaining court orders for recovery and to the provision of armed guards" . Alina Nazarova, Vice President, Head private banking unit of  "Nomos Bank" says that the clients served in her division received a number of non-financial services: "This so-called life style: the acquisition of real estate in Russia and abroad, buying and renting yachts, business jets, children's education in Europe, the creation of wine collections, travel and lots of other things that are an integral part of the life of a wealthy man. " Private Banking is perhaps the only segment of retail, in which bankers are not expected to slow down. Today's achievements in this sector are a 10-20% growth in a year - further potential is higher. Natalia Nosova predicts that future growth is likely to be between 30 and 50% per year.


Bankers, in turn, are willing to make efforts to ensure that more and more clients trust them. "The potential of private banking segment in the major regional centers is quite high. Demand for such services is increasing as the number of wealthy clients increases from year to year. In 2013, this segment of the bank continued a steady growth. By the end of the year it  is expected to increase by more than 20 percent compared to 2012, and it will continue in the future ", - said Mrs. Alferov.


However, competition for the few, in fact, the number of customers is fierce. As noted by Alina Nazarova, in this segment there are many banks, including several major public and private financial institutions and foreign ones. "However, this line is relatively young, and the degree of competition for customers is not dramatically high" - says Ms. Nazarova. - Therefore, the potential market of private banking remains extremely high. I think that in the medium run, we will see the participation of more of both large and small regional banks.

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