AGDelta joins the Avaloq Community Conference 2018 to exhibit joint solutions with Avaloq.
DATE: Thursday, 20th September 2018
TIME: 9.00AM – 6.00PM (Registration starts at 8.30am)
VENUE: The Fullerton Hotel, Singapore
Viewing post categorized under: Events
March 15 /
Awards, Events, Press Release
AGDelta wins Gold Fintech Award at the Hong Kong ICT Awards 2018
Award presented by Hong Kong Monetary Authority for the Banking, Insurance & Capital Market segment
Awards recognises AGDelta’s application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to solve financial services industry’s last mile challenges
SINGAPORE 15 March 2018 – AGDelta has won the Gold FinTech Award at the Hong Kong ICT Awards 2018. The awards, presented by Nelson Chow, Chief Fintech Officer, Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), steered by the Office of the Hong Kong Government Chief Information Officer, and organised by the Hong Kong Institute of Bankers, recognises AGDelta’s excellence and applications for the Banking, Insurance and Capital Markets categories, in particular the Artificial Intelligence (AI) framework built into its Digital Wealth Platform, making financial investments and advice more accessible, safer and smarter. AGDelta won one of three main awards in its category, the Gold FinTech Award (Banking, Insurance and Capital Market stream), and were selected by a 13 judge panel that included leaders from HKMA, EY, PwC, Accenture, and the University of Hong Kong among others.
“AGDelta’s Digital Wealth Platform allows private banks and wealth managers to overcome those last mile challenges that they currently face in getting their products accepted by bank gate-keepers and distributed to front-line bankers” says Andrew Au, CEO of AGDelta, adding “We do this through Case Based Reasoning (CBR) which references past cases, and applies AI to solve situational problems, and create suitable recommendations based on actual data. We are able to share trusted and compliant investment ideas anytime and anywhere, which is then combined with the ability to execute trades and orders quickly and efficiently, and a high-powered compliance monitoring process. The result is financial investment choices that are more accessible, safer, and relevant”.
AGDelta was established in 2008 following the Global Financial Crisis which saw a ballooning of rules and regulations governing the financial services industry. Designed to avoid a repeat of the crash, financial regulations also served to make life difficult for bankers, who have found it increasingly hard to provide personalised financial investment recommendations that were suitable for their clients. AGDelta solves this challenge through its Digital Wealth Platform, which automates the compliance process and incorporates AI to provide recommended products and strategies based on a client’s profile, existing clients that have similar character traits and past cases.
AGDelta went live in Hong Kong in 2011 and has now handled over USD$1.5 trillion worth of financial investment product transactions, and currently has 10,000 users in 15 countries across retail, wealth and private banking client segments.
The Hong Kong ICT Awards aims at recognising and promoting outstanding information and communications technology (ICT) inventions and applications, thereby encouraging innovation and excellence among Hong Kong’s ICT talents and enterprises in their constant pursuit of creative and better solutions to meet business and social needs. AGDelta’s Gold FinTech Award was organised by the Hong Kong Institute of Bankers, and the award stream recognises banking, insurance, and capital market software solutions that bring valuable innovation to increase efficiency when processing compensation payments, managing existing infrastructures or monitoring loans.
Following the successful launch of AGDelta’s Digital Advisory Platform in 2017, AGDelta will be hosting a pair of closed-door introductory events for the new Actively Managed Certificate (AMC) Platform.
The platform addresses the final challenge of industrialising the digital collaboration between investment strategy sponsors (Fund/Asset Managers), distributors (Private/Retail banks, Insurance Companies, Independent Asset Managers and Family Offices) of AMC’s for their end customers, and the manufacturers (Investment Banks) offering unique insights into both ‘PRE-ISIN’ and ‘POST-ISIN’ AMCs.
The end result of the new Platform will be to shorten that cycle to an unprecedented period of days whilst introducing for the first time “systematic” usage of end-client preferences and feedback to enhance the relevance, suitability and appropriateness of specific strategies in demand.
The closed-door events which are by invitation only, will showcase the platform among industry partners. They will take place over the following dates:
- March 8, 2018 – Singapore
- March 23, 2018 – Hong Kong
Both events will be attended AGDelta’s asset manager and private banking partners, include dinner and wine tasting, and end with keynotes speeches from distinguished industry personalities. The events will hold to Chatham House Rules.
If you would like to find out more information about both private events, please contact our business team at zhang.yuan@agdelta.com.
November 20 /
Awards, Events, Press Release
AGDelta wins MAS Fintech Awards (Singapore SME) at the 2017 Fintech Awards
Singapore-based FinTech firm beat over 300 global submissions to be shortlisted as a finalist, goes on to win the MAS FinTech Awards (Singapore SME)
SINGAPORE 20 November 2017 – AGDelta was awarded the MAS FinTech Awards (Singapore SME) at the 2017 FinTech Awards on 16 November 2017, thanks to its award-winning B2B and B2B2C Digital Wealth Platform, and achievements over the past 12 months. AGDelta was one of only four winners, out of an original 300 global submissions, winning over the judges based on criteria that included impact, practicality, interoperability, uniqueness and creativity.
“From the outset, AGDelta has worked to digitize the wealth management eco-system. Our goal has been to make financial investments, services and advice more accessible, relevant and safer for client advisors and their end customers” says Andrew Au, CEO and Co-Founder of AGDelta, adding “We have done this through the latest advances in Fintech, employing a combination of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and data analytics to enable the identification of more relevant investment opportunities. We have also employed RegTech to address compliance in 15 market jurisdictions globally in the areas of suitability and appropriateness across complex cross border settings. As a result, we have become one of the largest B2B industry investments platforms in the region, handling over USD$1.5 trillion worth of financial investment product transactions, with a growth rate that has increased year-on-year.”
AGDelta won the MAS FinTech Awards (Singapore SME), provided to Singapore-based FinTech SMEs who, in the eyes of the 11 judges, demonstrated innovative and creative FinTech solutions. The judges consisted of C-Suite executives drawn from some of Singapore and the world’s best-known companies, including Mastercard, Prudential and Deloitte & Touche LLP, in addition to MAS.
Andrew Au adds “The financial landscape is changing, and the industry is facing new challenges including growing regulation, digital disruption, and changing consumer demand among other things. AGDelta provides a solution to these challenges, and see this as just the beginning. We are looking forward to building our platform further with some exciting updates and product releases in the next 12 months that will truly connect buyers to sellers, and digitise Asia’s financial ecosystem.”
The 2017 FinTech Awards formed part of the Singapore FinTech Festival 2017, the largest gathering of FinTech companies, experts and entrepreneurs in the world, which took place at the Singapore EXPO on 14-16 November 2017.
The ten winners will together receive a total of S$1.15 million (US$850,000) in monetary support, of which AGDelta received S$150,000 (US$110,000).
Andrew Au adds “It is truly both an amazing and a very humbling experience to be recognized for this award. AGDelta’s journey in breaking new barriers in the Digital Wealth space since the financial crisis has been nothing short of phenomenal. We have solved complex regulatory compliance challenges and used Artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies to fuel our new digital advisory solutions for some of the leading banks, licensed wealth advisors, and their clients. I would like to thank the MAS, the distinguished panel of judges, our valued customers, investors, partners and the super team we have at AGDelta for contributing to this major industry recognition”
Great Singapore FinTech Festival 2017 for AGDelta. Honoured to be part of such a prestigious event – the largest gathering of FinTech experts, companies and entrepreneurs in the world – and topped it off by winning the MAS FinTech Awards (Singapore SME) award! We have come a long way since 2008, and could not have done this without our clients, staff and backers. Thank you all!
WEALTHMIND – Building a sustainable wealth business in a maturing market (Shanghai, China)
After a series of successful launch events in Singapore and Hong Kong, AGDelta followed up with a launch event on 25th of July in Hotel Wanda Reign in Shanghai, China. Attended by 19 senior executives from 15 different private banks, 3rd party wealth managers, security companies, the event focuses the discussion around building a sustainable wealth business in a maturing market. AGDelta’s Managing Director and Head of Wealth Management Advisory Tan Lee Nah was invited as a guest speaker to share her 20 years of extensive private banking experience from having worked as senior executives for ANZ, UBS, Standard Chartered, and UOB.
Structural challenges hinder on growth for wealth business in China
The event kicked off with a speech by Lee Nah sharing her observations of China’s current wealth management landscape and how it parallels to the development of the foreign wealth management market a decade ago. The speech triggered a debate with many participants expressing a few structural business challenges that are quite similar to what foreign banks were experiencing in the past. Many Chinese private banks are operating as a sub-division of the larger mass retail department. Although this structure would essentially alleviate the P&L pressure from private banking, it also means there is no clear client service and product differentiations and that has crippled private bank’s ability to offer a truly unique value proposition. The structure also presents some challenges in terms of revenue recognition between the divisions and internal competition for client’s AUM.
Leadership, regulations, and education key to China’s wealth management market development
Several participants offered up their thoughts and identified three keys to solving these structural challenges.
- Leadership in the banks must recognize that private banking and mass affluent are two very different business and need to be managed differently. In order to be successful, the private banking division must be made more autonomous in every aspect of its operations from organizational structure, to products and client servicing, to staff incentivisation. Without this autonomy, private banking will always be seen as an internal competition to mass affluent with clients not being able to see the value.
- Regulations in China can become a facilitator of growth for wealth management. Many are already seeing the CBRC relaxing the regulations to help promote the industry but there are still areas of improvements to be made. Allowing banks to expand their product range seems to be on top of everyone’s mind as banks are very much restricted to offer low-risk vanilla products like funds, trust, and insurance. Being able to offer more products will mean better diversification of assets which ultimately benefits the clients.
- Education, both internal to staff and external to clients, is also very important. Relationship managers need to understand the expectations of HNWI and UHNWI and how to meet those expectations. Clients need to be educated on the value of private banking and understand factors to consider when deciding whether to promote themselves to such status. This education will take time and it also needs to supplemented by changes in leadership mindset and regulations.
Realizing the power of digital advisory and its impact on business operations is key to success.
Faced with these structural challenges, private banks must look for creative ways to differentiate itself and find a unique value proposition. In China, the rapid development of fintech means many banks already have some level of digital footprints as part of their offering but most of these are targeted for the mass affluent. In terms of tools for their internal staff, very little has been done.
The ability for banks to sell more and differentiate itself would depend on the relationship manager’s ability to provide investment advice that’s appropriate, suitable, and relevant. To that end, banks need to provide their front line with digital advisory tools that can elevate their service capabilities through better data access and analytics. Lee Nah shared that she was able to experience first hand, how technology can have a dramatic impact on a firm’s business during her time at UBS and that such investment in technology will help bank find its unique strengths and weakness where it can differentiate itself.
Moving the industry forward with future discussions
AGDelta is a proud sponsor of this event because these discussions are what will help move the industry forward. As a WealthTech company that prides itself to solve industry problems, we believe in active engagements with product providers, distributors, and regulators. We hope this will be one of many events as we help China wealth market grow to its maturity.
HOW PRIVATE BANKS AND WEALTH INDUSTRY CAN SIGNIFICANTLY INCREASE REVENUES THROUGH SOLVING ‘THE LAST MILE CHALLENGES’?
On 16th June 2017, 26 senior executives from 19 Private Banks and 1 EAM, attended AGDelta’s launch of our new Digital Advisory Platform. By combining AGDelta’s well established solutions for Digital Product Distribution, Compliance (Suitability, Pre, At & Post Trade and Cross Border) and Digital Advisory or ‘Robo’ Advisory, into a single platform, AGDelta is the first #Wealthtech & #Regtech to offer the first complete end to end Digital Advisory Platform for Private Banks and Wealth Managers. AGDelta’s timing was perfect as the subject of banks offering Digital Advisory to their clients is extremely topical at the moment with both HKs SFC and SGs MAS both recently releasing consultation papers on the subject trying to assess how best the banks can offer these services whilst protecting their customers. ‘Last Mile Challenges’ The platform addresses the multiple ‘last mile challenges’ facing private banks and wealth managers at the moment which start from 3rd party external product vendors trying to get their products accepted by the banks gate-keepers and distributed to the front line bankers, the internal product providers, including CIO office, Treasury, Asset Management team and Research team, trying to insure that the front line recommend the investments that these teams have spent time researching for clients Front-line bankers wanting investment solutions that are not only appropriate but are also suitable under regulatory compliance rules and relevant to each of their client’s individual circumstances. The banks management need to see statistics on the teams that provide the investment ideas as well as what the front line bankers are doing in terms of viewing the ideas and recommending to their clients so that they can better educate and train their bankers. The final ‘last mile challenge’ is for the clients to receive the appropriate, suitable and relevant ideas and to be able to execute on those ideas as soon as possible. The Event Anthony Campbell-Brown opened the event by welcoming everyone and introducing AGDelta’s CEO, Andrew Au, who set the scene for the morning by outlining the last mile challenges for each stakeholder in the process from external product provider to gate keeper to front line to clients. Filip Vandenven, Executive Director of Antarctica Asset Management, presented how the Antarctica Product Distribution platform developed in conjunction with AGDelta, is able to simplify and structure Antarctica’s product information delivery so his buy-side clients can quickly understand the his product’s characteristic, risk profile, and performance without lengthy onboarding review. This solves the external 3rd party’s ‘last mile challenge’ by helping them get their products distributed in the banks.
Appropriate, Suitable and Relevant Andrew Au then took up the baton to walk through the rest of the AGDelta platform to show how the solution addressed the ‘last mile challenges’ from the internal product providers and gatekeepers who are able to collaborate to deliver a ‘house view’ of recommended investments that deliver a call to action front line bankers so they can present appropriate, suitable and relevant investment ideas to their clients. The session concluded with Andrew presenting the analytics that helps the banks management team see what investment ideas get the most traction by front line and clients and which of the front line bankers are the most productive and how training could improve the teams performance.. The event closed out with many attendees staying to discuss what success would look like in their bank with the AGDelta Digital Advisory Platform. Quotes
Filip Vandenven, Executive Director of Antarctica Asset Management said ‘’ We have been working with AGDelta since late 2016 and their digital platform has helped us tremendously in many ways; distributing our products to banks, EAMs and family offices effectively via a structured channel; monitoring client’s usage and helping them to perform proper product due diligent are the key areas in which we have realized benefits from the platform……’’
“AG Delta, one of the pioneer technology partners within the financial industry, has worked closely with many wealth managers and private banks like us to develop digital solutions for our advisory and execution platform. AGDelta’s long history of helping private banks head start has given it deep insights of the wealth management platform needs to help spearhead innovation in many ways.’’ Said Audra Seah, Managing Director Head of Investment Advisory & Capital Market Products, Wealth Management Group, DBS Bank
A senior Executive from a leading ASEAN banking group at the Launch event commented: ‘’One of the key issues facing private banking business is the scalability of investment product /investment ideas to frontline bankers, and thereon, clients. The challenges bankers are facing is the dynamic on demand access to such ideas and updates in order to service clients better through an automated process of matching client risk profile to product/investment suitability. AGDelta’s platform will help significantly in improving idea penetration and scalability that ultimately help clients generate risk-adjusted returns based on their investment goals. Improved client experience will ultimately drive banks’ productivity and revenue growth better.’’
Summary The AGDelta Digital Advisory Platform uses algorithms to solve many of the ‘last mile challenges’ but importantly it is the analytics on top that AGDelta provides which helps the external and internal teams to understand what investment advice is working or not and what the habits and patterns are of not only the teams that provide the investment ideas but also the front line bankers that deliver these ideas to their clients so that improvement can be made throughout the product distribution value chain.
Ultimately these analytics will be the difference between increased fees from appropriate, suitable and relevant investment ideas and consequently increased AUM for the banks that adopt this end to end solution.
AGDelta will be hosting further events in the future in Kuala Lumpur, Shanghai, Manila and again in Singapore.
2nd Annual Event for the Wealth Management Community in the Philippines
DATE: Thursday 26th May, 2016
TIME: 09:00AM – 4:50PM
VENUE: Shangri-La Hotel, Manila
AGDelta and RHT Compliance Solutions, RHTLaw Taylor Wessing LLP join together to host this industry event on the business and regulatory landscape for private banks. This Singapore event is the first of a series of events being hosted across Asia and will focus on Investment Suitability.
Date: 9:00 – 11:00 a.m. 21st Apr 2016
Venue: The Westin Singapore
Event Details: VIP Breakfast Discussion
Date: Thursday, January 21st, 2016
Time: 08:30am – 5:30pm
Venue: Fullerton Hotel, Singapore
Event Link: Compliance_in_Asian_Wealth_Management_Forum_2016
