Standard Bank Wealth and Investment won Outstanding Global Private Bank: Africa and Outstanding Wealth Management Technology Initiative: Front End at the PBI Global Wealth Awards 2022, plus two commendations.
Wealth and Investment serves high net worth individuals (HNWIs) in sub-Saharan Africa and those interested in the continent, delivering bespoke, personalised service and seamless on-and offshore solutions to global citizens. As an integral pillar of the Standard Bank Group, Africa’s largest bank ranked by assets and earnings, Wealth and Investment leverages the latest technology to meet the needs of its clients and their families.
In line with a value proposition that encompasses the attraction, growth and retention of their international clients in Africa, Wealth and Investment established an International Diaspora Clients division in 2021. Created to meet the needs of clients across segments in the Standard Bank Group, the division provides borderless banking solutions, facilitated by cutting-edge technology and tools that enable temporary resident and non-resident clients to manage their financial affairs with ease.
Figure 1: Standard Bank’s strong presence in Africa, and amongst its diaspora, is evidenced by its global footprint and its R122bn (US$7.2bn) in Assets under Management (AuM).
Source: Standard Bank’s PBI Global Wealth Awards 2022 entry.
Non-resident South Africans living away from the bank’s core ‘home’ market in particular appreciate the bespoke property and investment solutions of the International Diaspora Clients division. Diplomats, embassy employees and international business people either from South Africa, or with interests there, are all part of the diaspora model. The bank additionally has offices and clients in Nigeria, Kenya, across Africa and in the UK’s Channel Islands.
Non-residents have access to current, international and wealth accounts, multicurrency banking, credit cards, and loans, etc., as well as specialised relationship management and support services. They also qualify for preferential rates, no VAT on banking fees, and have access to partner services such as XpatWeb, which gives free advice about passports, visas and more. Temporary residents in South Africa have access to similar services, coupled with specialised support and advice.
Remittance services and the Shyft foreign exchange (FX) mobile app are also available. The latter allows clients to invest, buy, store, send, spend and exchange FX – and they can link physical or virtual Shyft cards and accounts to ease cross-border transfers. An international trading feature was added last year for global citizens who are constantly travelling.
Other technology options contributing towards Standard Bank’s Front-End PBI Global Wealth Award include:
My360 app: this ‘single view’ wealth management mobile and online service gives clients a global view of their financial status by aggregating and presenting data in easy to digest formats across multiple asset classes.
Super Banking app with Add-on Store: Standard Bank’s mobile banking gateway has been enhanced with a new Add-on Store that allows partners to add useful fintech tools, such as a Money Movements presentational tool or a Credit Score check. This development is in response to the trend for open application programming interfaces (APIs), which is encouraging easier data exchange and more collaboration in financial services (FS) and competition around data mastery.
These front-end developments obviously require good back-end IT in order to present, process and orchestrate information effectively. Standard Bank has this capability via a number of systems, such as its Dynamics365 relationship management (RM) system that pulls data from its core banking system, and its Challenger Portal, which provides RMs with e-learning tools, playbook resources, surveys and, ultimately, customers with a better data-centric service.
These and other similar systems are why Standard Bank was also Highly Commended in the Outstanding Wealth Management Technology Initiative: Back End category at the PBI Global Wealth Awards 2022. Most recently, the bank has added a new Next Best Action tool to its back-end to drive a recommendation engine that will deepen the value and strength of its client engagements.
Standard Bank Wealth and Investment was also Highly Commended at the Private Banker International (PBI) Global Wealth Awards 2022 in the Best Family Office category for the way they have adopted a ‘family first’ philosophy to serving all generations and types of clients; from in-country key markets like South Africa, to African diasporas living abroad, and those families with business interests on the continent. A drive to identify emerging Family Office clients among the newly wealthy was also noteworthy, as was an imminent private equity (PE) and direct investment platform.