The new European Data Protection Regulation (EU GDPR) intends to strengthen rights of individuals with regard to their personal data vis-à-vis companies. For Swiss and other non-EU financial institutions, one of the important rules is the extension of the territorial scope, which newly includes companies that process data of individuals in the EU when offering goods and services in the EU (e.g., Swiss financial institutions serving EU resident clients).

Open banking will lead to completely new forms of customer relationships and will enable the inclusion of third-party digital products. Obvious winners are customers and FinTechs - how can banks benefit from this?

With an intelligent target operating model, a bank can quickly adapt its operational processes to a new business strategy. The bank reference model «BANKINABOX®» was developed by Synpulse specifically for the purpose of offering a comprehensive and efficient solution.

Banks are slowly losing the primary banking relationship to their clients. More and more non-banks and payment service provider are taking over market shares through innovation, competitive prices and high quality service.

The private banking industry in Asia is undergoing times of increased M&A activity. This scenario follows international market dynamics, where a wave of consolidations is taking place in leading wealth management financial centers like Switzerland and a competition upsurge is occurring in growing markets like Latin America and Asia. For private banks operating in Asia, issues like China’s economic meltdown and, at a market level, cost pressures affecting banks’ operational models are challenges echoing on private banks’ annual growth rates in the last few years. In turn, industry players are pursuing either a merger or an acquisition as a way to achieve inorganic growth, resulting in a wave of consolidation in the regional market.

Given the criticality of advisory and the industry’s heavily marketed efforts in digital transformation and innovation, Synpulse set out to assess the current situation and progress in Hong Kong and Singapore. Overall the results were underwhelming. No experience stood out as exceptional. In fact, quality swung towards the lower end of the scale. Advisory seemed to be slumped in mediocrity.

The regulatory landscape coupled with evolving customer needs and behaviors poses significant challenges to private banks to remain profitable in Asia. The industry is following the trend in Europe towards consolidation and operational efficiency with the ambition to lower their operating costs. Adopting an industrialized business model cand help to reduce operating costs and operational risks.

In light of the growth story and bright prospects for Singapore’s nascent asset management industry, this paper sets out to describe the multiple facets which have contributed to the thriving hub, as well as provide a view on the emerging external asset management segment.

The insurance aggregator is an inevitable development in Singapore. Though triggered by local regulatory requirements for life insurance, the aggregator has an established presence in other partsof the world where financial advisory is at a mature stage.
Senior management leaders from the local insurance industry interviewed by Synpulse raise important issues regarding the aggregator’s viability and...