March 6, 2017

Credit Suisse AG has announced additional enhancements to its digital private banking platform in Asia, as client adoption and usage continues to increase. They have entered into a partnership with a fintech company Mesitis Pte Ltd (Mesitis) to provide its clients the ability to access “Canopy”, an automated account aggregation platform and reporting solution provided by Mesitis, through Credit Suisse’s digital private banking platform. In addition, Credit Suisse is also rolling out the first fully front-to-back automated Digital Client Onboarding application within the private banking industry regionally, which will enhance efficiency in the onboarding of new clients and create a new client experience.

Partnership with Mesitis will enable the bank’s Singapore-domiciled clients who have accounts with Credit Suisse’s Singapore Branch to participate in a pilot program to gain access to Mesitis’ account aggregation service “Canopy” through the bank’s digital private banking platform. Canopy allows clients to aggregate bankable and non-bankable assets across different geographies and asset classes. In addition, it provides sophisticated analytics and insights, helping clients to better grow and manage their aggregated wealth.

Credit Suisse was one of the early movers in embracing digital innovation when it set up its first Innovation Hub in Singapore in 2014, where a development team alongside several technology companies worked together to develop the initial prototype of the bank’s global digital private banking solution that was first launched in Singapore in March 2015.

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Francesco de Ferrari, Credit Suisse’s Head of Private Banking Asia Pacific and CEO Southeast Asia and Frontier Markets said, “Credit Suisse is committed to being at the forefront of digitization in the private banking sector. Over the past 24 months we have been constantly refining our digital offering through our Digital Private Banking client feedback program. Many of our high-net-worth and ultra-high-net worth clients have indicated they would like to have a single portfolio view available in one place, and to be able to plan, analyse and track their wealth across multiple institutions and asset classes. In response to this trend and our desire to place the client experience at the heart of everything we do, we continuously look to bring the most innovative technology solutions to serve our clients. Our collaboration with Mesitis is an important milestone whereby we aim to extend our existing digital private banking service offering through more comprehensive solutions and services for our clients.”

Tanmai Sharma, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Mesitis said, “Canopy as a product has been three years in the making and solves the classic ‘too much data, not enough information’ problem. This problem is particularly acute for private banking clients due to multiple custodians, complex products and a general lack of electronic data feeds, making such analysis an error prone manual task. By largely automating the aggregation process and adding deep analytics, we help the bank’s clients get an overall picture of their wealth, the risks they are running and do ‘what if’ analyses. Canopy also helps Relationship Managers analyze client portfolios, irrespective of the amount of complexity, and rapidly narrow down on what is performing, and what is not, in a matter of minutes. This makes suggesting suitable products a much more streamlined process. At Mesitis, we have been big admirers of Credit Suisse’s lead in the private wealth technology space and are overjoyed at having been selected as partners. We look forward to further and deeper cooperation in the future.”

Continuous enhancements, increasing client adoption and usage

Credit Suisse has also further enhanced its digital private banking platform with the introduction of additional functionalities including:

  • Making available the Private Banking Asia Pacific app to users with devices using the Android operating system
  • Introducing an enhanced log-in process with additional security technology using SecureSign as an alternative to the conventional physical security device (token) for completing the second factor authentication; and
  • Allowing clients to opt to “Go Green” thereby ceasing the physical printing and mailing of selected statements and transaction advices and accessing electronic copies of these documents

In the 24 months since Credit Suisse launched its digital private banking platform in Asia, client adoption and usage has been growing steadily. During 2016, the number of clients using the digital platform increased by more than six times. Clients were also more engaged, on average logging in more than seven times a month and spending more than 19 minutes per login session, with the most active user logging in more than 100 times a month. The volume of equity transactions placed by clients via the digital platform have also increased more than eight times, and in some instances, more than half of the total equity trades were placed by clients via the app, as compared to via email or phone.

Introducing Digital Client Onboarding

Credit Suisse is also introducing the first fully front-to-back automated Digital Client Onboarding application within the private banking industry regionally to be used by their Relationship Managers to onboard new clients domiciled in Singapore wishing to open accounts with Credit Suisse’s Singapore Branch. This application aims to enrich and streamline the client experience during onboarding, which is a critical but time consuming process, particularly in view of the ever increasing regulatory importance of the process.

With Credit Suisse’s Digital Client Onboarding application, the Relationship Manager can complete the entire onboarding process digitally on a specially configured iPad that is managed and secured by the bank, through a guided process which incorporates technology to facilitate the capturing of the clients signature electronically and Optical Character Recognition for client identification documents. This fully digital process is expected to both increase client onboarding efficiency and enhance the quality and completeness of the required data captured during the account opening process.

According to a recent survey of private banks in Asia conducted by Asian Private Banker and solutions provider Appway, none of the banks surveyed use internet-based portals or mobile/tablet apps as a channel for client onboarding, with 25% saying that their client onboarding processes are paper-based while 75% say it’s a combination of paper-based and digital.

Christian Huber, Chief Operating Officer, Private Banking Asia Pacific, Credit Suisse, said, “We are seeing excellent progress in terms of client adoption and client engagement through our digital private banking platform. We will continue to strengthen our digital service offerings, not only for clients but also for our Relationship Managers. We are transforming our Front Office technology platform and tools, including digitalizing key business processes. Digital Client Onboarding is a key initiative which will ultimately enhance a new client’s experience with Credit Suisse as well as the efficiency of our Relationship Managers who can focus more on servicing clients’ financial needs.”