After a run of double-digit growth at the wealth management group in Asia, its head is in no mood for complacency and talked to this news service about enhancing its brand to take business to the next level.

RBC Wealth Management in Asia intends to continue using its sophisticated client acquisition approach to notch up the kind of double-digit percentage growth reported in its latest financial year, it told this news service recently. 

The Canada-based firm, led in Asia by Terence Chow, has operated in the region for over 50 years, focusing on more complex client needs. It is a good story to tell.

“We had double-digit growth and we intend to sustain that over the next few years,” Chow said in a call. “We also want to continue amplifying the brand and the brand recognition. In the past, we were perhaps a bit under the radar and amplifying our story is something that we are now doing.”

RBC Wealth Management already wields plenty of muscle globally. It has C$1.11 trillion ($816 billion) of assets under administration, and almost C$793 billion of assets under management. This puts it comfortably within the top five largest wealth managers in the world. In Asia, Royal Bank of Canada employs around 2,000 people across wealth management, in global asset management, capital markets and investor and treasury services. It has around 360 RBC Wealth Management employees in Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia.

The firm continues to hire bankers in the region; recruits must live up to the values that RBC holds dear, Chow said. In the first half of the year the firm has added a number of new relationship managers to its private banking teams in Hong Kong and Singapore, as well as two senior wealth planning figures to cover the region. Alvin Chiam joined RBC’s Singapore team as a wealth planner, and Belle (Jing) Hu joined as associate director, business development based in Beijing. Both report to Vivian Kiang – head, wealth planning and trust administration. 

Chow spoke to this publication a few months after his appointment was announced and took on the role from 1 November 2019, a few months before global markets were slammed by the pandemic. He filled the Asia head slot left by Peter Corry, who retired after a 22-year stint. (Durability in the job is something of an RBC hallmark.)

Chow, who is based in Hong Kong, re-joined RBC 15 years ago and has had a number of senior roles in the organisation, primarily focused on strategy, execution, planning and operations for the wealth management business and RBC Capital Markets in Toronto and New York. Since February 2019, Chow had been chief operating officer, RBC Wealth Management – Asia. Another change announced last year involved Mike Reed, CEO, RBC Singapore Branch. He now leads RBC Wealth Management’s Singapore office and the Southeast Asia private banking team, reporting to Chow.
 

Using tech to drive engagement with clients
RBC, all the way down from group CEO David McKay, is focusing more on digital technology across the business. “We want to be a very digitally-enabled bank and a lot of it is what clients now want,” he said, referring also to the greater use of tools such as two-way video during the pandemic.

While the Asia operation is relatively early in its digital journey compared with other regions, it is currently working with the larger RBC organisation to bring technology and capabilities to meet the evolving needs of clients and advisors in the region, Chow continued. “Ultimately, our goal is to create a digital experience that’s meaningful for clients and that helps enhance our advisors’ effectiveness and productivity.” 

Like a number of other large banks, RBC engages with family offices in Asia – a nascent but fast-growing sector – as well as external asset management firms, Chow said. This is an important area for banks, with players such as UBS, Credit Suisse, Citigroup and Bank of Singapore competing for business in these sectors.

Planning-led client conversations
As this publication has reported, RBC WM has been a trailblazer in using data and analytics to get a 360-degree view of prospective clients, putting tools in relationship managers’ (RMs’) hands so that their initial conversations and follow-up meetings are as powerful as possible. (This also speaks to the idea that technology enhances advisors, rather than making them redundant.) Chow spoke enthusiastically about the planning-led approach to client interactions. 

“We always start conversations with what the client actually needs, and that means planning,” he said. “We are about actively listening, not pumping out trade ideas.”

Chow added that “with these tools you can create a really global understanding of a client.”

Perhaps inevitably, because the subject has been so strong in recent years, the wealth manager highlights environmental, social and governance-driven investing – ESG. Asia-based clients are very focused on the topic, given obvious concerns about pollution, resource use, labour standards and other challenges in the region and further afield. COVID-19 has given more momentum to this, he said.