The previous argument that private banks don’t deal with digital tools has been made obsolete with the Covid-19 pandemic. The next generation that are assuming responsibility for investments for themselves or on behalf of their family’s wealth are expecting to use video conferencing with clear/concise recommendations sent prior to video calls. They expect private wealth advisers to offer a more tailored service, cutting through the noise of many reports/analyses and emails. This is forcing private wealth advisers to do much more work with less time and therefore rely on digital advisory tools more than ever to do the grunt work for them. For example, to deliver “investment themed” recommendations that are “tailored, personalised and immediately actionable” with rapid service fulfilment levels expected.
Marked pick up in interest in unique ESG/sustainable, alternative VC/PE & digital asset/crypto investment opportunities
“The growth in demand and actual investment allocation in 2020-2021 for sustainable (ESG), alternative (VC/PE) and digital asset (token/crypto) linked investments within the region has been nothing short of remarkable,” says Andrew Au, CEO of AGDelta.
“Nearly every private bank CIO office has ESG themed investments every month, together with more private equity/venture capital related investments. The launch of several major digital securities exchanges offering private market/digital token/crypto investments has spurred significant allocations and demand from private clients to gain access to all of the above investment opportunities easily on a single product platform.” Au adds.
Desire for quick time-to-market (SaaS style) and open platform solutions
The pressures of the Covid-19 pandemic have meant that private wealth firms have turned to increased budget allocation for digital solutions that can support demand generation and customer fulfilment – given the obvious lack of front-line face time and a rapid need to equip product specialists, CIO’s, investment counsellors and front-line advisers quickly.
“To support this transition, it is critical that our clients be in a position to go to market instantly with the provision of SaaS solutions that are completely open architecture. This has been a major change in the way our institutional clients have transitioned from on-premise to cloud-based solutions with rapid time to market,” says Bhaskar Guntury, Chief of Technology & Operations at AGDelta.
Guntury points to the strong best execution trading platform heritage which has seen over US$1.5 trillion of transaction turnover in over 15 countries. Not just in Asia but also in the Middle East and Europe across leading private banks, universal consumer banks and independent asset managers and family office platforms.
Solutions to address the rapidly evolving wealth landscape in Asia
AGDelta holds the rare distinction in Asia as the only FinTech that has won top accolades at major FinTech awards in Hong Kong (HKIB/HKMA) and Singapore (MAS FinTech Festival), marking a decade of strong innovation. It focuses its solutions in an open/modular fashion to address the above challenges.
End-to-end investment advisory & fulfilment solutions
Relevance
“There is a whole universe of product offerings and ideas/research out there and sometimes it can be overwhelming! Our Digital Insights Suite cuts through this noise using recommendation engines that do the grunt work by streamlining the linkage between ideas/research, product collateral/fundamentals and client preferences/ history to rank investment solutions across investment themes, sectors, geographies and risk profile. This allows investment councillors and wealth advisors to provide personalised and relevant client advice,” he says.
Safety
“The best product solutions can only go so far if there isn’t a capability to perform due diligence in product review and client suitability. Our Digital Advisory Suite supports both product specialists and wealth advisors alike to digitally perform product and client due diligence all the way to client suitability letters and proposals, and connect to internal core and CRM systems".
Accessibility
“With over US$1.5 trillion transacted in our Best Execution Solution Suite, we allow our B2B clients to connect to internal/external product providers as an openarchitecture platform to easily manage quotation, termsheets and trade execution for conventional wealth, private/alternatives and digital asset linked investment solutions. We enable our clients to provide the widest product access all within a safe environment from a compliance perspective with strong best execution capabilities to boot,” he says.
New initiatives delivered during the pandemic
Cloud solutions
AGDelta has launched its digital advisory solutions (previously accessible only to major banks) fully onto the cloud as a SaaS solution with full Open API’s. This has enabled not just banks, but family offices, independent asset managers and digital securities exchanges to access AGDelta’s solutions with a business model ideal for the current business climate.
ESG solutions
In April of this year, AGDelta went live with its latest ESG offering, working closely with Asia-based client platform solution providers to over 35 B2B clients consisting of private bank’s and family offices connected to all the major fund houses (over 180,000 Fund ISINS). More importantly, the ESG Platform uniquely enables private wealth advisers and product specialists to delve much deeper than ESG as a rating to tailor recommendations that can limit a client’s tolerance by business involvement (e.g. exposure to gaming, alcohol, non-halal, controversial weapons) as well as aligning to sustainability development goal pillars on climate, water, renewables, labour rights, human rights, etc.
“The ability to scan existing model portfolios by CIO’s, focus funds/equities lists that are modelled through traditional quantitative measures and contrast and merge with qualitative and sustainability factors in the investment decision is a major pain point for all private banks and wealth advisers globally at the moment. We are very glad that we have once again added a unique innovation to the industry” says Au.
Digital asset solutions
In the past 12 months, AGDelta has launched major collaboration initiatives in the digital asset space with new partnerships with several digital securities exchanges, digital issuance and custodian/settlements solutions partners.
In March of this year, AGDelta signed a major contract with a newly licensed digital securities marketplace platform and plans to go live in four major markets in Asia and the Middle East later in the year.
The biggest challenge for wealth managers is, Au says, to be able to differentiate their service provision. This is all the more important in the APAC region where wealthy clients tend to have more banking relationships, three to five on average. “We need to be able to offer the safety, relevance and access on a best execution basis to whatever the client desires. Our platform, we believe, translates whatever the house’s megatrend thematic ideas are into actionable investment opportunities, but with the provision of staying relevant and safe,” he concludes.
This interview was part of TWM's recent APAC Wealth Technology Landscape Report (2021). Click here to access the full report.
