Standard Chartered Bank Ghana has taken the convenience of personal banking to a new height by holding an investments seminar for clients to help them make more informed and relevant choices about investments.
With a highly-trained staff, the bankers can now identify any structural or tactical gaps in a client’s portfolio and funds that are sitting ideal and move in to provide them a broader overview of a person’s investment profile and existing assets while making intelligent suggestions on how the clients can diversify their investments.
Speaking to the B&FT at the sidelines of the seminar which was held at the Moevenpick Hotel in Accra, Head of Retail Banking Ghana and West Africa at the Standard Chartered Bank, Henry Baye, said the core service in banking especially for priority customers and overall retail banking is keeping the customers at the centre of everything the bank does.
According to him the seminar will help clients to save and grow their money while exposing them to how they can protect the hard earn money while open their eyes to balancing on how to invest and having liquidity.
“Let me say that we are interested in the welfare of their customers hence this seminar was put together, to educate clients of the bank to know how to protect their investments against both market volatility of interest rates, inflations and foreign exchange losses. We are not only interested in the money but because we pride ourselves as the only bank able to meet clients, giving them these free advice.”
“So, our job is to help educate our clients to know their options in placing their funds in investments which will give them the competitive returns they seek. This is either for the short, medium or long term. This is a wide range of investment opportunity beyond treasury, fixed deposits with a bank or a high yielding deposits with a non-bank financial institutions or a microfinance institutions which places clients or investors funds at a high risk,” Mr. Baye said.
In his presentation, Mr. Baye said with the current developments and steady growth momentum of the Ghanaian economy, individual income for the affluent segment will continue to increase over the period and form a large pool of quality priority banking clients and as the market opens new horizons, there will be increasing demand for sophisticated priority banking solutions, like wealth management products along with special financial advisory services.
The meeting was attended by Stanchart’s priority bankers and according to the Head of Retail Banking Ghana and West Africa, the bank through priority banking is focused on offering a comprehensive range of personalised financial solutions to their clients.
“When people talk about money markets instruments in Ghana what are they talking about, there are very few people who know that there is a secondary market when it comes to treasury bills and bonds apart from the primary market where you go and buy directory from the bank of Ghana, there is the secondary bond market where bonds are being sold. What is interesting is that today I could to a client a 45-day bond because the bond is expected to mature in exactly the 45-days. This is because the client wants an investment for 45 days with very competitive yields,” he stated.
However, the Executive Director of Wealth Management,Ghana at the Bank, Setor Quashigah said to get full access to the bank’s investment advisory, one will have to open an account with the bank which will help them profile and check out the risk appetite and offer the best investment solutions which will suit the client’s appetite.
According to her, the highly-trained staff of the bank, are hungry to add value to the customer with a range of investments products which will make the clients wealthier than they came.
“As a bank, with our global experience, we always have first-mover advantage to offer the best in class value-added services to our priority clients,” she said.
Standard Chartered priority banking has a selected pool of highly-skilled and dedicated relationship managers assigned for the priority clients to proactively serve and oversee their total financial relationship.
With the bank’s Visa Signature credit card, the priority customers can enjoy free unlimited lounge access at Kotoka International Airport with one accompanying traveler.
Clients will also get free priority pass along with signature credit cards, which come with unlimited free access to lounges atairports in over 400 cities.
On the risk of too many banks running after too few priority banking clients in Ghana, Setor Quashigah said: “The market in Ghana is extremely exciting. It has a lot of depth. The market is big enough for a lot of players.”
As the country’s per capita income goes up, more and more people will be eligible for being priority customers. “We will be ready and encourage individuals who will like to bank with us to do so as we are going to cater for them,” she said.
