Winners rationale

2020 was a watershed year for digital transformation within Asia’s private banking industry. Not only did the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic instil the new normal of remote working and inspire innovative strategies of client engagement, but heightened market volatility made a seamless, personalised digital experience indispensable to clients, and a key differentiator for the private bank.

As a timely response to genuine needs, UBS Global Wealth Management (GWM) launched “Direct Investment Insights” for its clients in APAC. The solution aimed to tackle the challenge of delivering organised, processed information to users in a way that enables direct decision-making. It united the once-siloed online execution experience for clients by linking customised investment content with online trading functions.

More relevantly, UBS GWM in 2020 employed data analytics to enhance the user’s digital experience and the relevancy of content published on the digital platform and, in doing so, it created a highly adaptive feedback loop for improvement. The clients received push notifications with investment content and trading ideas from the application. With the help of artificial intelligence and machine learning, the degree of personalisation increased as engagement with the application deepened.

The key data stored through the application provided insights which client advisors used to strengthen client relationships. While industry-wide, there has been much talk of using data analytics to achieve a smarter client engagement, few banks have been able to systematically solicit, store, and process data. “Direct Investment Insights” has demonstrated an intuitive way of overcoming the challenge.

As such, the bank has facilitated tailor-made content distribution and direct trade execution, and merged both in a concise, user-friendly digital interface. The solution highlights a compelling trend as private banks move further into digital transformation: a hybrid of personalised advisory content and digital self-service.

UBS GWM has distinguished itself from peers by being the first to introduce a leading digital advisory solution in the region, welding together an investment journey from idea to action for the client, and manifesting how digitalisation can be deployed to supplement relationships, rather than to replace them.

UBS Global Wealth Management is Asian Private Banker’s Best Private Bank – Digital Innovation & Services for 2020.