EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Lombard Odier In London Hails Global Custody Service Offering

Tom Burroughes

31 March 2014

While being one of the most venerable names in banking, Switzerland’s knows that if it doesn’t innovate, then no amount of appeals to glorious tradition will work. The firm is seeking to stand out as an innovator on the investment side. (See here.) Within its private banking arm, meanwhile, an area of development that might not at first set the pulse racing, but is crucial, is custody and reporting.

This publication recently met with the ability to show the current picture of a client’s global wealth and assets in the same reporting format at the click of a button. It will soon be available (via the G3 app) via iPads and mobiles. Selected other banks are allowed to use the same G2 platform,” Tremlett said.

He said what is distinct about G2 is that it enables the portfolio manager to concentrate 100 per cent on wealth management; the system has a single point of contact for clients for all securities administration issues; it is efficient and has access to global risk management. In this day and age, Tremlett argues, such capabilities are must-haves for clients and managers alike.

“We are working with a number of family offices in the UK and Switzerland to use this system; also, a small private bank in Belgium is using the system. We are one of the few banks that has built an IT system specifically around wealth management,” he said.

Picking up clients
Echoing views made by a number of other boutique players in recent months, Tremlett said Lombard Odier is getting a good deal of business from clients not just unhappy at the kind of service – or lack thereof – from some big banks that back out of sub-scale markets.

“A lot of big banks are cutting back in markets,” he said, saying that clients are being turned away and having to re-think their bank relationships.

In London, there are two main businesses – the institutional asset management team, with a group of over 100 people; and private wealth management, with 35 people. As far as the latter is concerned, “we are in growth mode”, Tremlett said. “There’s a gap in the market in the UK for a private bank to come in and deliver services people are looking for. Clients don’t want a standard packaged product,” Tremlett said.

“I am looking to hire additional bankers into the , restructured its old ownership model of unlimited liability family partners to meet a new reality of greater global scale and hence, potential risk. (For more detail on this, see here and here.) It looks as if the kind of innovations that Tremlett is talking about hold a key to how Swiss banks of a certain type will attempt to adjust to new realities.