FNBB Reboots Wealth Management Services

Isaac Pinielo | Monday November 2, 2015 13:54

 

Wealth management is a high-level professional service that combines financial or investment advice, accounting or tax services, retirement planning and legal or estate planning for one fee.

Waziba Pansiri, a wealth manager at FNBB, said wealth advisory is an important support arm of the private bankers at the bank’s private clients.

She noted that the bank has had a full wealth advisory capacity since 2007, and that they felt the need to revive this service and continue to provide value to most of its clients through its private clients division.

“Our advisory philosophy follows the FirstRand Advisory Philosophy of being a client needs led model,” said Pansiri.

She explained that the initial conversation with clients would generally be prompted by an introduction by the banker who has a wealth of knowledge on the potential needs of the client through their daily interactions.

She added that various financial and behavioural tools are then used to analyse the client’s needs.

“We are aware that every client is different, so you can expect that the expertise that may be required to provide a solution for one client would not be the same for another,” she said.

Pansiri further stated that the bank has capacity to advice on estate planning, personal tax, financial planning, family trusts as well as offshore trusts and hedging instruments.

She stated that FNBB’s fiduciary obligation is to ask questions that most people generally do not discuss with their banker.

“We know that most of our clients are professionals, but they generally do not apply the skills from their professional on themselves,” she said.

According to the wealth manager, this is so because their (clients) do not have the time to do so, or they are unsure of the bias it may serve on hampering their growth.

She noted that as a bank, FNBB has time and resources for every one of their clients, adding that the bank is dedicated to providing a structured advisory approach using up to date information on the market trends, the economy as the legal and social status on which our wealth is built, and this is done from the comfort of the clients private offices and homes.

Experts say wealth management can be a profitable business for some commercial banks as it offers services designed to help clients build, manage, preserve and transfer their wealth.