Kbank zeroes in on the high rollers

Kasikornbank offers a wide variety of personal investment services.

Kasikornbank has established 14 relationship managers to serve premium customers who have more than Bt50 million in the bank's businesses. The team will provide customers with integrated wealth products and investment solutions.

First senior vice president Tawit Thanachanan said people were asking now what to do with their money. So, the bank would provide three levels of investment service for premium customers.

The first is "Product Solution and Advisory", which is the most flexible investment service and provides a range of investment products, covering short-term, medium-term and long-term, available both on-shore and off-shore, to meet customers' needs.

The bank currently offers more than 20 investment products in the form of bills of exchange, debt instruments, mutual funds, equity and structured notes. The relationship manager team would also provide analysis reports, market trends and monthly investment advice to each customer.

The second level is "Portfolio Advisory" which will suggest investments in the form of an asset allocation portfolio in different products. This is designed by the banks' relationship manager and based on the bank's research and strategies. However, features would depend on the customer's investment style.

For example, if the customer was very conservative, the bank would suggest to invest in money markets for 50 per cent of the portfolio, 25 per cent in debt instruments, 15 per cent in equity and 10 per cent in alternative investments such as gold and commodities.  

If the customer was very aggressive, the investment portion in equity would be increased to 55 per cent, while the money market portion would be reduced to only 10 per cent.

The feature of this investment service is that customers can make their own decisions in every investment transaction and the portfolio will be closely monitored, updated and adjusted as required.

The third level of signature private banking is "Private Fund", which is similar to the second but the bank will make investment decisions instead of the customers and the minimum investment is Bt10 million.

First, the relationship manager will talk to customers about the risks they can take, then staff will offer the most suitable type of investment to customers. There are seven types, covering low, medium and high risk.

If customers need more special services, which would likely provide a private fund manager, so they can design their own portfolio with staff.

The customer must have a minimum Bt50 million of investment.

In addition to financial service, the bank will provide additional special services such as a property consultant when the customers want to buy property around the world, a world-class concierge who can help the customers book private jets or high-class restaurants, 24 hours for international SOS when travelling abroad, etc.

Tawit said premium customers had Bt220 billion of investments, with Bt160 billion in bank deposits, Bt10 billion in bills of exchange, Bt40 billion in mutual funds and Bt10 billion in bonds. And the bank aims to gain another Bt50 billion to bring its total premium portfolio to Bt270 billion by the end of the year.