For decades now, Swiss icon Julius Baer has considered Asia its second home market. Two of the banking group’s seven booking centres and 23% of its total workforce are in this region. Singapore and Hong Kong are its second- and third-largest employee locations, respectively.
Today, Julius Baer is routinely ranked among Asia’s top five private banks by assets under management, as it continues to bolster its regional franchise across Hong Kong, mainland China, India, Japan, Thailand and, of course, Singapore.
One standout is the bank’s emphasis on digital growth. Last year, Julius Baer introduced a new multi-asset class mobile app so that its wealth clients can trade and transact on the go. It also launched a digital intermediaries platform and completed its first artwork tokenization.
This constant forward motion and disruption is sending a powerful message to wealthy families.
Even though private banking competition is growing more intense in Asia, Julius Baer stayed focused on the fact that there are far more people today with greater fortunes than ever before. It follows that demand for top-quality strategies to increase wealth and manage finances across multiple asset classes, legal frameworks and countries has never been greater.
That’s why the first call clients usually make is to Julius Baer when they want to open a family office and need related advice on real estate, succession, governance, or even lifestyle interests and needs. Kevin Tay is the firm’s head of wealth planning and family office services for Singapore, where Julius Baer last year established an innovation lab.
Julius Baer is on the cutting edge of an emerging sub-genre: the medical family office. The idea is that while health becomes a priority for the affluent, family offices often lack the specialist expertise, network and experience needed. Given the asymmetry of information in healthcare, wealthy families are finding it makes sense to turn to intermediaries to craft medical family offices.
Julius Baer realizes that health can be strategically managed to reduce common medical risks and enhance general wellbeing and treatment outcomes. The bank sees it as an opportunity for family offices and wealth managers to expand their range of services as Asian wealth expands apace.
Julius Baer offers unique discretionary portfolio management solutions too, for which it takes the Singapore award. Bhaskar Laxminarayan is CIO and head of investment management for Asia Pacific.
Under his leadership, Julius Baer is emphasizing growth in recurring income, with DPM a core part of that strategy. The firm wants to increase its DPM penetration by positioning solutions that complement its advisory offerings. This is being executed through an evolution of its product mix, accompanied by value-based pricing.