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APB Summit 2024: How Julius Baer, UOB, and Barclays are (private) banking on the future

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While business updates were a key focus at the APB Summit 2024 in Singapore, top leaders from Julius Baer, UOB Private Bank, and Barclays Private Bank also explored their strategies for the next generation of clients – a segment experiencing substantial intergenerational wealth transfer.

Julius Baer reported an 11% increase in assets under management (AUM) to CHF 474 billion (US$549 billion) in the first half of the year, with Asia contributing 25% of that growth. UOB’s private wealth assets grew by 14%, and the bank is on track to reach 400 relationship managers (RMs) by 2026.

Barclays Private Bank in Singapore, which targets ultra high net worth clients and focuses on the single-family office space, has been seeing business growth since launching three-and-a-half years ago. Nuveen highlighted its success in direct lending and real estate investments, managing US$150 billion in AUM.

Julius Baer 

Shui Wei Ho, Julius Baer

Shui Wei Ho, market head for Thailand, Japan and Asia Switzerland, shared that Asia’s growth outpaced this year, driven by a few factors. “Market performance has been very positive this year, and we also observed a very meaningful slowdown in deleveraging, which had hurt business somewhat last year,” Ho explained.

“Secondly, we had very positive FX impacts for the business and net new money from our new RM hires. In the Asia-Switzerland business, we’ve been expanding in the last 12 to 18 months, where we’ve added quite a number of senior RMs,” she said.

Julius Baer is focusing on expanding its Asia-Switzerland business in response to growing demand from Asian clients for geographical and jurisdictional diversification. Referral collaboration between RMs in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Switzerland is increasing, Ho said.

She pointed out that the next generation is seeking higher-risk returns from emerging trends, including cryptocurrencies and green investments. They also prioritise philanthropy, sustainable investments, and value education, learning, and community.

“So, at Julius Baer, we offer digital assets ETFs as well as research coverage in this space, which a lot of them appreciate. We also offer sustainability discretionary mandates, which a very select group of our more ultra clients are interested in,” she said. In addition, the bank launched a Young Partners programme for Thai clients in Bangkok last year.

UOB Private Bank

Teng Hwee Neo, UOB

Teng Hwee Neo, CIO and head of investment products and solutions, said UOB is experiencing AUM growth from existing RMs and through the integration of the upper mass affluent segment, known as Privileged Reserve, into the private bank.

“In the span of 18 months, we migrated about 7,000 accredited investor clients onto our [private banking] platform, and close to 70% of them are wealth active,” Neo said, adding that for many of them, it is “their first-time experience with certain products that are usually traded by accredited investors in the private banking platform.”

Net new money has principally come from North Asia and Singapore. Through the acquisition of Citi’s consumer banking business in four ASEAN markets, the bank added seven million clients.

“We are looking to see whether there are actually hidden gems within the platform, these new clients that we could possibly onboard into the private banking platform,” Neo continued.

The investment specialist also echoed that impact and ESG investing is actually a big component for the next generation that wants to be engaged from a wealth advisory perspective. “The next generation also wants to do trades digitally. So that’s actually a big focus and a big piece of investments we are looking at – so a lot more self-service, digital transaction abilities.”

Barclays Private Bank

Evonne Tan, Barclays

Evonne Tan, who is the head of the private bank for Singapore, highlighted that Barclays is a relatively new entrant in the market, so they are starting from a relatively low base.

“From that perspective, there’s a lot of upside and growth. The market has been good to us in the last three and a half years,” Tan added. “When we came into Singapore and Asia, one of the key drivers for our positioning has been to bring our strengths to the market, specifically targeting the ultra high net worth family offices.”

Tan is seeing significant intergenerational wealth transfer happening, including the move towards institutionalising investments, shifting from a centralised business and leadership model to a more decentralised model, or delegating responsibilities to a professional team.

“So we feel that there is this gap in between because of that big shift in the client base. And so we look at ourselves and see what we can bring to the table to be able to meet that.

“Barclays is first and foremost an investment bank, and we want to offer solution-driven collaboration not just within Asia but also globally and across our various businesses,” she explained.

Barclays has been organising events to engage the next generation and bring global family office communities together from regions like the UK, Europe, and the Middle East to share best practices from more established, legacy family offices.

Nuveen

Jeff Carlin, Nuveen

For Jeff Carlin, head of global wealth advisory services, Nuveen,  “education is a very big component,” when it comes to the next generation as they become more comfortable with private market investments.

“They’ve grown up with cryptocurrencies, they’ve grown up with NFTs, they’ve grown up with all these different things, and that is influencing where they invest,” he said. “Gen AI is also having a profound impact.”

“So, our view is that, with this transfer of assets that’s going to happen, which is in the trillions, it’s really going to be critical for all of us to really spend time with the future generation by bringing them into a dialogue.”

Nuveen is seeing strong demand across all forms of credit and alternative investments. With the real estate market now bottoming out, the firm believes the upcoming upswing in real estate will be quite significant, presenting investment opportunities.

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