Three blessings in disguise that COVID-19 gave the Asian private banking industry in 2020 COVID-19 has brought unprecedented challenges to the global economy and caused many disruptions in our daily lives. But every cloud has a silver lining and quite a few industry participants have shared with Asian Private Banker throughout 2020 that the pandemic has accelerated a number of trends and has removed obstacles to change. Here are three positive changes triggered by the pandemic in 2020.
Reimagining client engagement
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he most obvious change must be the acceleration of private banks’ digital agenda, centred on reshaping client interaction now that the pandemic — with its social distancing measures and travel bans — has made it harder to organise face-to-face meetings, which used to be essential to private banking.
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“Many so-called cardinal rules of private banking have been broken during COVID-19,” Vincent Chui, chief executive, Morgan Stanley Bank Asia, shared at one of Asian Private Banker’s Leaders Week Webinars. Chui added that the squeeze in execution commission is already happening, with industry participants — especially the newcomers — pooling investments into electronic trading platforms.
