FNB Private wins global awards for wealth and innovation

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JIMMY MOYAHA: The Euromoney Global Private Banking Awards were recently held, an awards ceremony at which FNB Private took several honours, including, amongst others, South Africa’s leading private bank.

For more on this, I’m joined on the line by the chief executive officer of FNB Private Banking and Advisory, Eric Enslin, to take a look at these latest achievements.

Eric, lovely catching up with you. Thanks so much for taking the time. The significance of the Euromoney Global Private Banking Awards in the private banking market, obviously something that FNB prides itself on being able to not only compete in, but excel in.

ERIC ENSLIN: Thank you for having me. Yes, in the market there are many awards going around in financial services, but especially the Euromoney one is one that we are very proud of to be associated with firstly and then secondly to receive the accolades.

Euromoney is one of the leading financial research houses on a global stage. They’ve been doing these awards and research topics since the mid-90s.

And to be recognised amongst over 100 participants on a global stage, but more specifically to the South African market, is a great accolade for the business.

For us, it’s not about the awards, it’s more a validation of our client strategy, our advice philosophy, how we’re trying to solve for our clients. Our pivot and our anchor purpose to clients is to be their trusted advisors, helping them to grow and protect their wealth.

These awards are just a validation that from our peer groups on an international level, we are in the right direction.

JIMMY MOYAHA: Eric, take us through these specific awards that FNB Private picked up this time around and how the awards speak to those values that you mentioned around being advice-led and focusing on being able to service your clients.

ERIC ENSLIN: Jimmy. So there are a couple, Euromoney, they don’t only do private banking, but they have a very strong bias focused toward their other awards, the investment industry, investment management, capital markets, investment banking and so on.

So in this round, the awards that we were recognised for were South Africa’s best private bank, and then they also have various categories, so then South Africa’s best for digital solutions, which is very topical in this world of technology, artificial intelligence [AI], and so on.

Then something that we’re very proud of is the recognition in our investment pillar and solution, because that’s one that, as a default, clients don’t always associate necessarily banks as best in class when it comes to investment management and so on.

Now we’ve been recognised as South Africa’s best for discretionary portfolio management and South Africa’s best for equities.

Then also in private banking, we have different client segments. We’ve been recognised for South Africa’s best private bank for ultra-high net worth clients, and the last recognition was best for sustainability. There is a sustainability category underpinning or assessment underpinning, especially many of your investment solutions and so on.

So there are a couple of awards. We are proud of the best private bank and the recognition in the investment world.

Because I think, Jimmy, one of the things that is a challenge for us in South Africa specifically, because I think the definition of private banking globally is a more comprehensive one, with a big bias towards investments, structuring and so on, where sometimes I think in South Africa that perspective is lacking a bit because people see private banking predominantly as everyday transactional banking, those type of topics, and people sometimes forget about the structuring and the investment part of it.

JIMMY MOYAHA: Eric, you touched on the digital awards, and I want to look at that in a bit more detail around the digital strategy of FNB Private and indeed of the FirstRand Group, especially where it relates to ensuring that you provide value to your customers and you allow your customers to leverage the best of artificial intelligence and technology in the service that you offer them.

ERIC ENSLIN: As you and your listeners would know, FNB has always prided itself to be very innovative in terms of our solutions and also from a digital perspective, our capabilities in that regard.

So apart from obviously the everyday banking capabilities in how people engage and transact with us via the apps and online banking and so on, I think there’s more than that, because I think a big underpinning of your digital solution capability is your data sets, which we are very strong in terms of understanding our clients and their behaviour and anticipating their needs.

By doing that, utilising your data better to get a better client context, you can be proactive in what digital solutions and advice you offer clients in a proactive way, and then anticipate whether it is credit facilities or investment solutions and so on.

I think that capability with the AI world is very exciting going forward because then you can supplement the human and the digital worlds to deliver better client outcomes, more efficient, and much better for clients.

JIMMY MOYAHA: Eric, let’s talk value created by personalising your solutions. As FNB Private, you take great pride in being able to provide those tailored solutions through, as you mentioned, the use of data that you have about your clients and just how the FNB Private ecosystem is built around the clients who you cater for. 

Take us through what that kind of personalisation and specialisation allows you to do from a value-add perspective for your clients.

ERIC ENSLIN: I think, Jimmy, the reality for us was a couple of years back when we saw the real benefit for clients and where we could add value was if one reflects on these awards and similarly last year and engaged with the market a bit wider, I think our integrated advice approach and the way we manage our clients’ money and financial ecosystem around lots of solutions is most probably what stood out on the international stage and contributed to us winning the awards.

Now, that’s a mouthful, but in simple terms, if you think about it, very few, if any, financial decisions are made in isolation, and that’s what people often underestimate.

I’ll take a simple buying decision.

Let’s assume, Jimmy, you decide to buy a house or a holiday home, and then people immediately just think I need to get finance for that house via a bond, and I must go through a process. Who’s going to give me the money at the base rate and the quickest decision.

But I suppose that is where opportunity lies, because if you think about that buying experience, there is a specific ownership structure that must come into play. So do you buy it in your name? Is it maybe two individuals? Do you buy it in a trust, in an entity? What about the property insurance? The life cover? How best do you structure that loan to optimise your cash flow? Have you catered for that in your wills and your fiduciary structures?

So you can suddenly start to see that that one buying decision or financial decision has multiple impacts on lots of other stuff, and that’s our integrated advice approach.

When we engage with our clients, which we don’t define as individuals, they are families, because if you do integrated advice, you must do it across a family structure.

Then you start to try to connect all the dots for that family and make sure there are no gaps for the present or sometimes in the future. That then, with your client data and client context, helps us to deliver better client outcomes.

JIMMY MOYAHA: Eric, before I let you go, can we take a look at the importance of maintaining sustainability within the FNB Private business. You touched on the fact that the business aims to ensure that it’s constantly able to service its clients and provide the best value proposition to its clients, but alongside that, I imagine anchoring that service with a strong balance sheet and a strong performance from the FNB Private business really goes to show that the business does take great pride in being able to not only keep its existing clients and sustain their growth, but bring on new clients and allow for those new clients to expand as well.

ERIC ENSLIN: Yeah, spot on. So there are a couple of things around that. That’s already a realisation if we look at these different client segments, Jimmy.

So counter to what a lot of people will believe, we have a big focus on youth in our private banking structures, because if you think of the heart of private banking, we want to grow and protect our clients’ wealth, and that’s the family’s wealth over time, which includes a generational wealth transfer.

When that needs to happen and that’s a big topic if you just go and look at international private banking, and I think a big and important topic in South Africa, which sometimes is neglected, and that’s how you maintain the next generation of clients. In addition to that, in South Africa we look at the market and there’s a strong cohort of salaried individuals.

But the last couple of years, we’ve seen the biggest growth in the private banking market is self-employed. So self-employed, family businesses and so on.

So that’s how we have different strategies across the market of sustaining our client growth. Then I think it’s very important, you must also look after your existing clients. That is very important for us to sustain from a client franchise perspective.

JIMMY MOYAHA: Protecting their best clients and ensuring that the clients receive all of the endless support that makes them one of the best private banks in the world. That is the team at FNB Private, reflecting on their Euromoney Global Private Banking Awards that they received and the honours that they won this year.

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