Winners rationale

Credit Suisse stood by its clients during a testing time in 2020.

When there was a panic sell-off in bond funds in March 2020, the Credit Suisse team analysed the daily top “sell” trades and provided targeted updates on these products to manage outflows.

The use of technology — such as the display software of Tableau — helped keep client holdings up to date while providing daily trading insights. Clients’ substantial holdings were monitored in anticipation of sudden market gyrations, with Credit Suisse helping them respond to events that moved the markets and dispensing relevant and tailored advice.

When helping employees transition to work-from-home arrangements after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Credit Suisse empowered client-facing staff to provide pertinent advice by consolidating house views, news, product and holdings information on the in-house Spark software platform. As a result, client queries were addressed swiftly and holistically, even as ideas targeted to clients went through a process of increased relevance to market events. This was proven effective when the data-driven, contextualised and targeted Advisory and Sales Switch ideas generated an about 20% higher client take-up rate.

To get a sense of the volume: over 250 ideas were communicated via email from January to September 2020 along with more than 40 online product sessions with several hundred client attendees. Credit Suisse’s managed solutions proved to be resilient despite the pandemic with AUM through August 2020 — when Credit Suisse submitted its application for Asian Private Banker’s awards — surpassing 2019 volumes.

The number of initiatives Credit Suisse took in 2020 as well as the ability to execute trades for clients when they needed it the most, helped it win Asian Private Banker’s Best Private Bank – Fixed Income Advisory award for 2020.