Bank of Africa: Adapting to the new relational expectations of private clients

Some studies suggest that heirs will seek a new financial advisor after inheriting their parents' wealth. What are you doing to cultivate family loyalty and prevent heirs from moving their money to different institutions?

Private banking in Morocco took its first steps at the beginning of the 21st century with the implementation of a market segmentation adapted to this type of client. The objective sought to improve the experience of privileged customers within the bank by providing them with the necessary service and support throughout the life cycle of the banking relationship, and especially by anticipating the expectations of this category of customer through advice in various fields: investment, savings, asset management, and inheritance.

The family banking relationship is a relationship of trust that is established over time, we cannot claim to be the banker of the family or within the framework of a family office structure without having ensured a premonitory connection with all the members of the family and a fine knowledge of the profile of each one. This is only valid by means of a permanent proximity and a durable and personalized accompaniment of all the members of the family during the patriarch's lifetime, in order to ensure the banking relationship over several generations. 

As you can see, I put more emphasis on the human relationship than on the professional one. Indeed, expertise and good advice are imperative in the management of private clients. The personal relationship will allow family members to maintain their assets in the founder's bank.

To this end, all private bankers and managers of private families are chosen for their expertise as well as their relational intelligence. 

How do you approach inheritance advice? How does it differ from usual financial advice?

The role of the private bank is to preserve and develop the assets of its clients. This is also managed over several generations. So when it comes to the subject of succession, the private banker is perfectly aware of the capital importance of this issue, which is generally raised during the initial discussions with the client in the context of estate planning. 

When we call upon the services of a private bank where advice is part of the services offered, we are not limited to the discretionary management of a given investment. The private banker will also plan the continuity of his client's assets over the long term, and ensure their continuity over several generations according to the wishes and needs of each individual. 

Financial advice is a service that meets a defined objective concerning a particular asset held by one or more people in a given field of expertise. In general, it is a short- or medium-term investment with an estimated financial return to be achieved. The private banker in this situation puts his knowledge at the service of his clients while adapting it to each profile.

To what extent are Millennials different from their elders? How different are their expectations and behavior?

Millennials are generally more concerned with a fast, high and regular return on their investments, and are therefore more interested in tangible assets such as real estate, while their elders opt for investments with a secure and regular return.

In the same way, their entrepreneurial side influences their relationship to philanthropy and volunteer work. Young millionaires are less likely to make direct donations, but more likely to consider that their positive impact on the world is materialized through the way they live, consume, work and invest.

How have you transformed your wealth management offering to cater to the new generation? And how are you attracting new potential clients?

Our bank is listening to the new generation, to better understand how they work and, above all, to fully meet their expectations. We are therefore in a major transition period in which we are committed to continuously evolving our organizational model, our offer and our customer approach by moving our internal IT system into the digital sphere with the aim of simplifying and improving the customer experience.

Although direct contact with an advisor in a branch is appreciated, particularly in the context of negotiations, the lack of a direct contact with a customer is a major obstacle to the success of the project.

Indeed, the new generation wants more simplicity, speed, accessibility, and digitalization. Also, once satisfied, this generation becomes a prescriber of choice for their entourage.

According to an Accenture study, the current wealth management advisory model does not work for women. Do you see any differences in terms of investment behavior between women and men? What are some examples of this? And how have you adapted your offerings to better serve female clients?

Women in general have a cautious investment profile and have only become financially independent in the last 50 years or so.

Fortunately, we are now in the 21st century and things have changed a lot. When women invest, the amounts invested tend to be lower than those of men. This can be explained by the fact of patriarchal dominance on the volume of savings. 

Proactivity, continuous advice, and proximity are imperative to accompany private clients and to recruit new ones. The transformation of the individual relationship into a collective relationship (group of friends or family) is more pronounced in the case of relationships with private clients. In relation to the product offer, the content is the same, it is more the advice and the adaptation of said offer to special women's events (women's day...) that make the difference. 

Technology has been implemented to digitize almost all areas of a bank, but the advice remains complex to automate. How is your bank approaching the integration of AI into its advisory services? Will it be a mix? Will the human touch still be needed in wealth management?

We are seeing business and job content change as a result of the deployment of technology, particularly robotization and artificial intelligence, regardless of the industry. 

Artificial intelligence tools can help banks identify customer preferences and empower their teams to react based on this knowledge and emotional intelligence. This is critical to strengthening the relationship with customers. 

Artificial intelligence and its technologies can also be used to analyze a large amount of available customer and market information in real time, and then predict the best solutions to offer.

Let there be no mistake, this is not about replacing the bank advisor with an AI, but about providing him with intelligent tools that will allow him both to reinforce his position as an expert advisor and to free up time to listen to and interact with his client. 

The current challenge for banks is to adapt to the new relational expectations of customers, to reinvent the profession of advisor and to find new growth drivers.

Our bank believes that artificial intelligence is the key to creating a more human customer experience. The bank is in the midst of a transformation and the days of the generalist, reactive advisor are over. We need to appropriate all digital tools and ensure an efficient, transparent, and delivered omnichannel relationship. A combination of all these factors will enable our bank to improve customer satisfaction, gain in productivity, and optimize commercial performance.

The banker's job, assisted by AI and freed from low value-added activities, takes on the posture of a banking expert, listening to his customers and able to offer them the products that best correspond to their situation and their requests. This is why we speak today of the "augmented advisor". The value of the advisor is once again a major competitive challenge for the network bank.

How do you see the evolution of wealth management in the next decade? (open banking, platformication, new players, new technologies...)

The market is likely to grow significantly as more and more people gain a minimal financial understanding and understand the obvious benefits of investing and managing their wealth professionally. Their mindset is also likely to change over generations. As interest rates remain low, the search for higher returns will support growth, encouraging clients to turn to higher return investment solutions such as structured products.

In the same vein, the increasingly digitalized industry can expect increased international competition from banking and non-banking entities such as private wealth managers.

Thus, wealth management, whose absolute objective is to preserve, grow, and perpetuate wealth, evolves according to the economic and social context, as well as the needs and expectations of the client. 

During these moments of uncertainty, the environment becomes quite complex and only a personalized approach can meet the requirements of a clientele that wants to be accompanied on all aspects impacting lifestyle and wealth. The profile of clients who call upon private management has also evolved and we are witnessing a rejuvenation of demand due, for example, to the emergence of young entrepreneurs. This trend requires holistic and integrated solutions for the optimization of all assets, including the valuation of the company and its activities. In the coming years, wealth management will become more democratic and complex while allowing clients with diverse profiles to access more opportunities. 

At the same time, the pandemic has posed new challenges, particularly in the way private banks interact with their clients. Digital technology is transforming the way we live our lives at all levels, and customer expectations are evolving in the same direction. This health crisis has accelerated this process by further eliminating physical meetings and creating more focus on digital tools. In short, the private banker must find other levers to maintain a privileged relationship with his clients. 

In addition, we need to continuously improve our level of service, both banking and non-banking, and make our solutions more digitally accessible so that the customer experience remains impeccable. The private banking market remains very attractive, but as competition intensifies, gaining and maintaining a comfortable position requires a thorough understanding of the economy and a strategic approach.