Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Bank of Singapore


There is a full page in the Straits Times today stating that ING Asia Private Bank is now called the Bank of Singapore !

This is after ING Asia private bank was taken over by OCBC bank and being converted to a wholly owned subsidiary.

Details from the newspapers are as follows
  • Only dedicated private bank headquartered in Singapore ( But I guess it is because its a Singapore bank?)
  • Aa1 credit rating from Moody's (But then again all the Singapore banks have VERY good ratings)
  • 15% Tier one capital and is ranked amongst world's 50 safest banks, by Global finance
Personally, unless they do much aggressive marketing like what CIMB bank have been doing recently, coupled with great customer service, they will not be able to gain much market share. This is based on what I have observed about the local bank's private bankers. They do not treat their clients as well as those from foreign banks, especially DBS. DBS have relatively bad customer service.

In addition, having keep track of much bank products that are being offered, I have never really found DBS or OCBC offering good products. So let's hope that the Bank of Singapore, being a subsidiary , be able to pull away from the 'norm' of Singapore banks and be a world class private banking center.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Private banking RM's are very different from personal banking RM's, most often exemplified by our local banks' premier or priority banking services. For one, Credit Suisse Private Banking used to require a min of 2 mln USD as deposit before you can open a private banking account.

Anonymous said...

Good products are for the accredited ones, are you one of them?

ntuchartist said...

Haha, nope I am not an accredited investor. Just a final year student waiting to enter the work force.

But I have heard of stories from family friends who have personal bankers and also the products they offer and especially 'how' they offer it. In addition, I do get to talk to some of the bankers to get a feel of what's happening too.

Some bank's RM are just out to take as much commission out of the client as possible. I mean it is true that they are trying to earn a living, but they must understand that accredited investors will have RMs from other banks and thus will have a rough gauge of the commissions that they are paying.

In the end, savvy investors will want to get the best deal with a good service. And from what I have observed, Singapore banks just lack the competitiveness as compared to the overseas bank, especially in the service.