Winners rationale

With more private banks entering the arena, VP Bank’s intermediary services have faced fierce competition in Asia. Yet, VP Bank remained the wealth manager of choice among Independent Asset Managers (IAMs) in 2020 thanks to its clear focus on servicing this particular group of sophisticated clients with its nimble digital platform and thanks to its extensive experience.

As one of the few mid-sized private banks in Asia, the intermediary business is the strong suit of the Liechtenstein-based bank. VP Bank has one of the largest dedicated set-ups for this group of clients in the region, and has strengthened its team in the last year. It added an experienced business development manager to onboard new intermediaries, complementing its strong team of client advisors and investment specialists to support existing IAM clients.

That intermediary clients contribute over 50% of the AUM of VP Bank, both globally and in the Singapore branch, is unique in the industry and indicative of the significant investments and services that are deployed to provide best-in-class services for IAMs. All intermediaries that work with VP Bank have unrestricted access to the full value chain and the complete offering of products and services. This includes the capability to place orders via the bank’s intermediaries team with direct access to the trading floor in Singapore or Vaduz; or using the trading functionality in the e-banking solution developed by VP Bank specifically for intermediary clients.

In 2020, VP Bank stepped up its service to intermediaries with an expansion of the team and support of the firms with digital capabilities. The bank increased the staff strength at the intermediaries desk by 20%. VP Bank’s state-of-the-art e-banking plus platform caters to the immediate need of IAMs for maintaining normal services, especially during the pandemic induced lockdowns — since smaller IAMs might lack the budget for heavy tech investments.

In addition to the digital offering to IAMs, VP Bank’s own digital resilience allowed the onboarding of IAM clients to continue during the pandemic. The bank remotely onboarded a significant number of new IAMs in 2020 and attracted net new assets despite the challenges posed by the pandemic. The continued investment and improvements made in servicing IAMs has been rewarded with a great reputation among clients: half of the intermediaries the bank brought onto the platform are referrals from existing intermediaries working with the bank.

VP Bank is Asian Private Banker’s Best Private Bank – Intermediary Services for 2020.