Global Private Banking Awards 2015: Winners’ Profiles – National Winners (Northern Europe)

Best Private Bank in Denmark

Danske Bank

Conscious of the increasingly competitive environment, Danske Bank has launched an aggressive programme to improve its business model. “Our main focus in 2014 was getting ‘fit for fight’,” says Marlene Nørgaard, head of Danske Bank, Private Banking Denmark. The strategy aims at freeing employees’ time to enable them to focus on value-adding activities, ensuring correct segmentation of clients, and matching their needs and requirements with a relevant value proposition.

“There are more and more players in the market so competition is getting tougher,” notes Ms Nørgaard. “In order to win market share, we need to sharpen our value proposition and target our customers individually.”

The bank focuses on clients with at least DKK5m (€670,000) in assets, and estimates to have a market share of 40 per cent in Denmark.

Last year, it developed a holistic advisory tool, Wealth Planner, to give customers a full understanding of their financial situation, including risk, tax and liquidity issues. The tool, which incorporates the most frequently used company structures, investment products and tax wrappers in the countries where the bank operates, enables advisers and clients to evaluate trade-offs, such as the desired risk allocation across asset classes and liabilities.

The institution is also focusing on improving the digital customer experience, and is developing solutions for on-boarding new clients or digitally signing documents. Investments in mobile banking solutions have enabled customers to check their finances, pay bills, trade stocks and bonds while on the go.

“Innovation is an integral part of our DNA,” states Ms Nørgaard. “Continuing to focus and develop digital and mobile solutions will be essential in order to maintain our role as one of the top players in the market,” she says.  ET

Best Private Bank in Finland

Best Private Bank in Norway 

Best Private Bank in the Nordics

Nordea Private Banking

Last year Nordea attracted remarkable inflows of net new money across the Nordics (€8.3bn) bringing total assets under management to around €73bn.

“It was a record year, which also confirms that our strategy is working well,” says Gunn Wærsted, head of Nordea Wealth Management.

The bank has strengthened and developed next generation services and enhanced on-boarding of new clients. Also, it has worked “intensively” on customer acquisition, by up-skilling advisers and improving tools available to them.

“Finally, we have focused on ‘Meetings Worth Sharing’, a concept developed together with customers, where they actively recommend us to their network. This has created a large number of new clients and prospects,” reports Mr Wærsted.

Over the last couple of years, the bank has raised the asset threshold for private banking customers. This has had a negative impact on the net number of clients overall, although they still increased by 1 per cent last year, but has lowered the cost/income ratio.

Clients below the new threshold, which ranges from around €200,000 in Denmark to €500,000 in Sweden, are best served by the retail banking division, which has strengthened the value proposition for the premium segment, explains Mr Wærsted.

A solid process is in place in all the Nordic countries for referring clients when they approach the private banking threshold.

Today, the bank’s focus is on rising the share of recurring, ie non-transactional income, which in 2014 represented 60 per cent of total income.

The Nordic institution has identified key areas of improvements for the future.

“We are investing in tools, processes and competences to build both personal and digital relationships with our customers,” he says, not playing down challenges in this journey, mainly linked to legacy systems.

“Nordea bank has been built through several mergers, so our technical legacy is pretty scattered, and we could become much more flexible and fast with new solutions and ways of interacting with our customers.” The bank, he says, is investing in “one of the largest change programmes in Northern Europe”, aimed at replacing its core systems with new systems. It has also just launched a brand new version of its online trading platform for customers.

Another key challenge is related to regulation. “MiFID II has a major impact on the design of IT systems, and this implies increased costs,” says Mr Wærsted. “Also, many procedures needs to be updated and personnel trained. In addition, the timeline is tight as the complete picture of the regulation is still not ready.”    ET

Best Private Bank in Latvia

Swedbank Latvia Private Banking

Swedbank set up its private banking unit in 1999 in response to the growing demand for more tailored services from the swelling ranks of wealthy Latvians. Today, the bank targets future growth through both local and international customers, and also has a presence in Sweden, Estonia and Lithuania. It is currently aligning business models in all three Baltic countries in order to increase efficiency and adopt best practice.

The threshold for HNWI customers is €100,000, and although there is no separate offering for UHNWIs, those with more than €300,000 are serviced by the most experienced private bankers.

Competition is tough, reports Guntars Reidzāns, head of private banking at Swedbank, with private banking services offered by both local banks and foreign players, most of whom have Scandinavian origin. 

“We gained and strengthened our leading position in the market by constantly developing product and service offerings, following the needs of our clients and also by uniting business and opinion leaders,” he explains.

Clients are advised to diversify among asset classes with a preference on the home currency, the euro, in order to minimize currency risk, says Mr Reidzāns, and there are plans to increase the share of developed markets in portfolios.

The bank places great importance in its brand, believing digitisation leads to more frequent contact with clients while making it easier to switch banks. A strong brand is therefore vital in both retaining current customers and attracting new ones. ES