Global Private Banking Awards 2020: Winners’ Profiles – National Winners (Central and Eastern Europe)

Best Private Bank in Central and Eastern Europe;
Best Private Bank in Austria; 
Erste Private Banking

Erste Private Banking offers a full spectrum of wealth management services through a broad regional footprint in CEE and operations in six countries – Austria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia.

In 2019, and across all CEE countries, the bank focused on further rebalancing portfolios, with investment products overall generating a robust growth of 10.3 per cent in assets under management, year-on-year.

“We broadened our portfolio with new investment products and structures exclusive for private banking, with special focus on discretionary portfolio management and ESG solutions,” explains Michael Tröthann, head of CEE retail sales and business development.

Recently, and in co-operation with in-house asset manager Erste Asset Management, the bank launched two new bond funds in the ESG space, complementing their existing range of responsible investment products which now consist of 13 different mutual funds.

In Austria, Erste launched its ‘Invest Manager’ digital portfolio management tool, providing a multi-asset portfolio tailored to the specific risk profile of clients. “With this tool, we provide a comprehensive supplementary offer for our affluent clients, closing the gap to a full discretionary portfolio management solution,” says Roland Jacubetz, head of private banking and wealth management in Austria.

The bank was quick to implement Covid-19-related measures. From mid-March, around 95 per cent of their private bankers worked from home for around two months, before the launch of a rotational approach for in-office work. All branches in Austria and the majority of branches across CEE markets remained open.

“During the lockdown periods, our widely acknowledged digital banking platform, George, handled a record number of transactions, while our trading systems also performed flawlessly despite exceptional volumes,” Mr Tröthann explains. “The crisis has further sharpened our determination to remain a frontrunner in digital transformation, with a particular focus on advancing the digital standing of our advisory tools and processes.”  PG

Best Private Bank in the Middle East;
Best Private Bank in Russia;
Best Private Bank for Entrepreneurs
Credit Suisse

Credit Suisse’s  private banking arm has enjoyed much success in the entrepreneurial segment, which it sees as a primary growth engine. The bank says it has been collaborating with entrepreneurs to realise their ambitions, finance their businesses and manage their legacies for more than 160 years.

“We continually seek ways to better serve this sophisticated client group, whose banking needs require private and corporate solutions along the whole entrepreneurial lifecycle, often across different countries and currencies,” says Philipp Wehle, CEO international wealth management at Credit Suisse. “Privately owned companies are the backbone of many economies and represent an important part of the overall wealth of our client base.”

The bank has further strengthened this focus with the appointment of Christian Meissner to co-ordinate wealth management and investment banking services for entrepreneurial high net worth clients, offering them lending and wealth planning, as well as advice on mergers and acquisitions, concentrating on mid-market opportunities.

Many of these clients have connections to emerging markets, where Credit Suisse is particularly strong. It was one of the first foreign banks launching in the Middle East back in 1967, offering a “robust” approach to risk management, minimising any focus on ‘politically exposed persons’.

Servicing Russian clients, who typically need support in Switzerland, the UK, continental Europe and Asia, has also proved lucrative, with the bank developing “a deep understanding of the country’s specific requirements” over the last 25 years, according to Anton Cherny, head of IWM emerging Europe at the Swiss bank.

Against a challenging backdrop, Credit Suisse has recruited wisely to replace key staff, including former wealth management boss Iqbal Khan, who defected to Zurich rival UBS after a well-publicised fallout with group CEO Tidjane Thiam, who has also since left the bank. YB

Best Private Bank in Bulgaria 
UniCredit Bulbank

UniCredit Bulbank’s most important objective in the long run is to increase customer satisfaction and become the preferred partner for clients. This long-term focus paid off last year, when AuM, including life insurance products, grew by 27 per cent.

“Every year we aim to achieve better results than the previous one,” states Darin Peshev, head of private banking at UniCredit Bulbank. “Despite the challenges private banking faces today, we continue to thrive, being a trusted partner for clients, providing best in class financial services and added value through the private banking team’s high-level of expertise and knowledge, and by leveraging on the group’s investment strategy.”

The UniCredit Group investment strategy is a “pillar” of the bank’s local investment philosophy, benefiting from “strong partnership with global asset managers”, which has proved to be crucial during the crisis. The key goal in portfolio management is to preserve clients’ wealth through generations, which is achieved by focusing on conservative investment solutions and diversification.

Through its dedicated ESG strategies, the private bank is focused on meeting the investment needs of the next generation of Bulgarian clients, driven by the desire to generate an environmental and social impact, as well as financial returns.

The UniCredit Private Banking Youth Academy also provides an important opportunity to engage with the next generation of clients. “We are committed to offer our clients ‘banking that matters’, providing real life solutions,” says Mr Peshev. ET

Best Private Bank in Czech Republic
ČSOB Private Banking

The first pillar of ČSOB Private Banking’s three-pronged growth strategy has been around educating clients on the importance of staying invested, thinking long term and spreading regular investments over time, which has led to an increased share of client investments in equities and alternatives, at the expense of deposits.

Acquiring new clients remains crucial. While the bank’s affluent customers continue to be the private bank’s main client target, the expansion of the investment banking activity to cover SMEs and family run businesses has proved another growth opportunity. The closer co-operation with SMEs is benefiting both arms of the group, which are making the most of “mutual synergies”, says Pavel Tichý, director of private banking segment and wealth office.

With ČSOB being a ‘bancassurance group’, the third growth lever is around the sale of non-life insurance solutions to individuals and businesses. “The growth potential for business insurance is huge, because most of private banking clients are also company owners, CEOs, or board of directors’ members.”

But while rising markets critically helped generate good financial results last year, this year there are “several challenges that will have to be dealt with to sustain our KPIs,” says Mr Tichý.

The first one is to keep convincing clients they should think long term, and that equities and alternative investments have their place in portfolios even during volatile markets. It will also be challenging to continue to innovate. “Given current market conditions, it is ever so much harder to come up with meaningful investment solutions with an acceptable risk-reward ratio.”

Another big issue is “to keep staff and offices Covid-free”. However, the sudden switch to remote working at the start of the pandemic forced the bank to rapidly solve issues that in the past would drag on, such as remote access to some of the bank apps.

“We are ready, should the pandemic situation worsen and government regulations tighten up,” he adds. ET

Best Private Bank in Hungary
OTP Private Banking

OTP Private Banking operates as one of the major business lines of OTP Bank, providing dedicated private banking services in 11 countries across the CEE/CIS region to almost 72,000 clients and managing €8.4bn ($9.1bn) in client assets.

The private bank of OTP Hungary enjoyed a record year in 2019, both in terms of asset growth and net new money generation. Assets under management amounted to HUF2,116bn ($7bn), an increase of 25 per cent from the previous year.

“Due to the perfect combination of favourable business environment and the appropriate growth strategic steps, growth dynamics reached record levels in 2019,” explains András Takács, managing director, head of wealth and investment management.

Despite the pressure on profitability, operating revenues also reached a record level of more than HUF18bn in 2019, an increase of 17.4%.

In response to the challenges of digitalisation, a new dedicated self-service value proposition was added to the existing service range at the end of 2019. The new service, ‘Direkt PB’, is the first private banking service in Hungary exclusively using digital channels.

“In recent years, we have been putting in a lot of effort and energy, and it has been part of our strategic focus, to shift traditional banking transactions towards digital channels. We have achieved serious results in this field, as 89 per cent of our customers have access to internet banking, while 78 per cent of transactions are made via digital channels,” Mr Takács explains. This high ratio of internet banking adoption proved crucial this year, making it easier for clients to adapt to all the remote services provided by the bank during the Covid-19 lockdown. PG

Best Private Bank in Poland
BNP Paribas Bank Polska S.A.

With a cohort of at least five strong players, Poland is one of Europe’s more competitive private banking markets, where the crown of best firm has changed hands several times in recent years.

BNP Paribas, now overseeing €3bn ($3.5bn) in client assets, has significantly boosted its position in this growing market by recently purchasing and merging Raiffeisen Bank Polska with the BGZ subsidiary it acquired in 2014.

As in other parts of the BNP Paribas empire, there is a marked emphasis for clients on education and networking, facilitating attendance at programmes co-ordinated by Stanford University in the US and Cambridge University in the UK.

Clients are also invited to attend international tennis tournaments sponsored by the BNP Paribas group, including Roland Garros, the Fed Cup, Davis Cup and multiple local events.

Despite nominal independence in their regions, these BNP Paribas subsidiaries have a huge advantage over pure local players, as they are able to leverage group expertise and resources from Paris and other key hubs.

“We have a remarkable market share in the Polish wealth management space, where we see huge opportunities,” says Vincent Lecomte, CEO of BNP Paribas Wealth Management. “There are a lot of successful entrepreneurs in Poland. Co-operation will be essential with our corporate banking team and I am optimistic that there will be much more to come.” YB

Best Private Bank in Romania
Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen Romania

Headquartered in Vienna, Raiffeisen Bank International offers private banking and wealth management services in Central and Eastern Europe and Russia.

Private banking services in Romania are offered via the Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen (FWR) brand. Over the last few years, brand awareness in the country has been increasing steadily, helping the consolidation of the bank as one of the leading providers of private banking services in Romania.

“Last year was part of a period during which Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen in Romania reached maturity in terms of client awareness, and most of our actions during 2019 reflected this,” explains by Adrian-Florin Negru, head of FWR in Romania.

In order to attract new clients, FWR has been active organising lifestyle and business events, which targeted the three main categories of clients: existing clients, referrals from existing clients and corporate referrals.

The bank has continued to expand its investment product offering. This year, and in order to meet client demand for more sustainable investment solutions, FWR launched its first ESG product in Romania. The fund, a locally managed funds of funds, gives clients access to the largest asset managers in the ESG space worldwide. “This idea, originated in Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen Romania, was implemented with the help of our local asset management company, and is sold exclusively to private banking customers,” Mr Negru explains.

In the second part of 2019, the business pushed forward the local integration of a new financial advisory tool, which allows the bank to provide advisory services under the MiFID II directive, as well as consolidating all reporting needs. PG

Best Private Bank in Slovakia
Tatra banka

As the first private bank to be established in Slovakia, Tatra banka’s aspiration is to maintain its reputation as a market pioneer by introducing new technologies and innovations into the sector.

Two years ago, the bank was the first in the country to introduce face biometrics, to enable client onboarding and access to accounts. The bank, which also uses voice biometrics as an authorisation tool, has recently launched its chatbot ‘Adam’, Slovakia’s first virtual private banker. The Tatra banka app was also the first to be compatible with smartwatches, allowing clients to quickly access information about their latest transactions and balances.

For Marek Neckár, head of the private banking division, every innovation introduced should add value to both the clients and the bank. “In times of high regulation standards and bureaucracy, innovations enable us to deliver our unique services most effectively and at the highest quality level. Our clients appreciate the smartness, flexibility and the range of the services we provide.”

Tatra offers clients a comprehensive range of wealth and asset management services, including investment consulting, all of which are fully in compliance with MiFID II regulations. An expert team of analysts and experienced portfolio managers choose best in class solutions from a universe of more than 5,000 investment products managed by the world’s largest asset managers.

In addition, Tatra provides access to a large selection of alternative investments, including gold, real estate and investments in art, and it has recently expanded its ESG product offering. PG

Best Private Bank in Ukraine
Alfa-Bank Ukraine

Despite much criticism of Ukraine’s banking system, especially for corruption, the quality of service in private banking operations can sometimes exceed international standards, believes Rafal Juszczak, general manager, Alfa-Bank Ukraine.

At his bank, for instance, customers have access to a personal banker round the clock, without having to make an appointment in advance. “For most of the global banks this operational service level is all but impossible,” he suggests.

With the expectations of wealthy Ukrainians, all of whom would have had experience of Western institutions, growing quickly, Alfa-Bank has developed a range of services, from financial instruments and business structuring, to lifestyle management and entertainment.

When deciding which services to focus on, the bank’s management keeps a keen eye on the origins of Ukrainian wealth, once concentrated in the hands of a small number of industrial clans. Today, the money is more likely to come from larger numbers of smaller scale entrepreneurs, particularly in Ukraine’s burgeoning IT industry.

“Along with the fact that we now have more self-made businesspeople and IT entrepreneurs among our customers, it is worth mentioning that the customer base has also become much more gender-balanced,” says Mr Juszczak, who oversees $725m in client assets, which are growing steadily.

While investment offerings in Ukraine are still in their infancy, Alfa sees a growing demand for tailor-made investment strategies, shaped by customer risk profiles and investment horizons. Tax and succession planning are also on the rise due to a series of legislative changes expected in 2021.

The bank is owned by Luxembourg-based ABH Holdings. The main shareholders of this holding company include Mikhail Fridman, a Ukranian-born businessman holding both Russian and Israeli citizenship, and Kyiv-born oil billionaire German Khan, a citizen of Ukraine, Russia and Israel. YB