The organisation has been building a presence in the Asian market, tapping into a shift of how funds are bought and sold by banks, wealth managers and other parties.

Allfunds, the fund distribution and wealth technology business, has opened a new Hong Kong office after winning a set of licences in the jurisdiction. Separately, the firm announced a set of senior appointments in areas including wealth management. 

The firm recently won Type 1 and 4 licences granted by the Securities & Futures Commission of Hong Kong, it said in a statement late last week. 

In Southeast Asia, Allfunds services has about $20 billion of assets and has expanded its distributors´ network to more than 30 entities. Hong Kong will become the hub for Allfunds in North Asia.

The new team will be led by Dr Louis Poon, who has joined as head of Hong Kong, and Stephanie Chan who has joined as head of client services, Hong Kong. They will be based in Hong Kong and report to David Perez de Albeniz, head of Asia, who is based in Singapore.

Dr Poon has more than 20 years of asset management and banking industry experience. Prior to joining Allfunds, he worked for different financial groups such as Franklin Templeton Investments, Janus Henderson Investors, and Standard Chartered Bank, among others.

Chan brings with her over 10 years of experience in securities services and asset management firms, having had various client servicing roles at HSBC, JP Morgan and Euroclear.
 

Restructure in Europe, international
The firm has also restructured its business operations, splitting operations into pensions and insurance and wealth management. As part of the changes, Licia Megliani, country head for Italy and regional manager Southern Europe & EEC, will become global head of the pension and insurance division. 

Laura González, regional manager Iberia and LatAm, will become the global head of the wealth management division.
 
The new country head for Italy will be Stefano Catanzaro, former general manager in Italy for BNP Paribas Securities Services. 

The firm said that its new structure will allow it to “strengthen its leadership in the wealth-tech industry”.

In separate developments, Credit Suisse completed its transfer of the Credit Suisse InvestLab to Allfunds Group, as originally planned in late June 2019. Credit Suisse InvestLab, as the platform is called, is now combined with Allfunds, building a global fund distribution platform with a total of SFr570 billion ($585.9 billion) of assets under administration. It gives the Swiss bank the kind of market penetration that might otherwise have taken years and high resources to build. With Allfunds recently moving into the Asian market, the deal also gives Credit Suisse an important new channel to that region.