How Taishin Bank is aiming to dazzle Asia's ultra-rich

The bank aims to increase wealth management revenue and AUM by 8-10% annually through the strategic use of digital tools and branch interactions.

In 2018, Taishin Bank’s wealth management fee income beat competition after surging 8% YoY compared to rival lender figures which only rose by 1-4.5% in the same period. To retain its dominance in the lucrative wealth segment, Taishin Bank is betting big on big data and omnichannel branches to serve the evolving wealth requirements of the country’s high-net-worth population.

By tagging a wealthy customer based on segment, behaviour and channel preference, Taishin Bank is able to develop a service around specific customer needs, delivering only what is essential to an individual with more than enough cash to burn. Affluent customers are initially grouped based on AUM and the bank proceeds to analyse all available data including risk appetite, transaction and geographic information, channel preference and an interview to tag the customer.

Dedicated relationship managers

The first to launch tagging initiatives for affluent customers in the country, Taishin Bank is able to provide tailored wealth management package ranging from asset management, asset allocation advisory service and investment management. Based on their preference and needs, customers can receive market information through personalised EDMs and enjoy invitations to exclusive social gatherings like golf charity events, art exhibitions and musical activities. Through this effort, Taishin saw EDM customers reading rise by 30%.

“To ensure service precision, we have 66 tags on average for each affluent customer although some clients have more than 209 tags,” Mr. Samuel Lin, Deputy CEO of Taishin Bank told Asian Banking & Finance. “Taishin Bank wanted to give customers what they wanted without asking,” said Lin. “To invite customers according to their interest without asking, we used Customer Tagging to make the process precise.”

The digital wealth opportunity
Taishin Bank is embracing advanced analytics to ride on the rapid pace of wealth creation in the country. In 2018, Taiwan was home to an estimated 135,000 millionaires and 1,781 individuals with $30m or more. These figures are expected to rise to 166,771 and 2,233, respectively, by 2023, according to Knight Frank’s annual wealth report.

To cater to the growing digital wealth needs of the super-rich, Taishin Bank developed a mobile app that senior financial consultants can use on their provided iPads to maintain interaction with customers, provide suggestions on asset allocation whenever needed and stay on top of their scheduled appointments. In October 2018, Taishin Bank also launched a digital wealth advisory platform called Robo-King which hit an average return rate of over 10% since the beginning of 2019. The bank also has an AI forecasting model which combines a customer’s digital footprint and investment preferences in online browsing to rationalise the products, channels and segment units. Following the launch of this effort, customer subscription rate has grown from 4% to 15%.

Smart branches are also part of Taishin’s dedicated wealth management strategy. Equipped with state-of-the-art video conferences and smart speakers, financial consultants can appropriately respond to customer queries with the help of an AI-powered assistant called Rose/Pepper who can answer inquiries on credit cards, deposits and loans through voice, text, picture or video. During non-business hours, financial advisors can also stay in touch with customers through video teller machines (VTM) that connect the two parties through video-call consultations.

In the next three to five years, Lin said that Taishin Bank is targeting to grow wealth management revenue and AUM by 8-10% per year. “Our goal is becoming client’s first choice to grow their wealth.”