Abu Dhabi can play a big role in success of asset management platform

Dubai:The development around the Abu Dhabi World Financial Market, with its focus on asset management, can play a big role in the success of the asset management tool in the region, a top banking official sad.

“Currently, Swissquote bank is concentrating on the launching and promotion of the Expat Account in the UAE, where customers can use for long-term savings and investments but also to facilitate payments from anywhere and to anywhere in the world regardless of where they may be posted next or even when on a globetrotting vacation,” Mario Camara, Chief Executive Officer of Swissquote Middle East and Asia, told Gulf News.

The Swiss bank is a leading provider of online financial services and the bank has two offices in the UAE.

One is a DIFC subsidiary which holds a Category 4 licence from the DFSA and focuses on providing Swiss savings and trading accounts mainly to Expats in the GCC.

The second is a Dubai Branch office holding a Representative Office Licence from the UAE Central Bank. “Our Dubai branch focuses on future spot trading platforms,” said Camara.

Online bank

Even though Swissquote is purely an online bank, “we are very far from virtual. We focus on bringing the best banking solutions to retail and institutional customers at very competitive prices. We can offer low prices by concentrating on maintaining the quality of our financial services, instead of maintaining physical bank branches all over the world,” Camara said.

Customers seeking higher yields through financial markets exposure and who want to have their assets managed, “we connect our Expat Account to our electronic Private Banking platform.”

“If the Abu Dhabi World Financial Market incorporates the legislation of the DIFC, which would make a lot of sense since it would bring much needed consistency to the Free Zone regulatory environment of the UAE, it will be a hard to pass the opportunity for Swissquote to open an investors’ lounge in the fastest growing financial zone of the UAE,” he said.

The electronic Private Banking platform gives clients the ability to choose the type of markets, industries and risk appetite for their portfolio. The electronic Private Banking then, through algorithmic management, creates, monitors and whenever possible improves on the best possible portfolio which conforms to the customers’ chosen parameters.

On the institutional side, he said Swissquote offers asset management platform, specifically designed for independent asset managers and family offices handling ten to thirty individual portfolios. The asset management tool allows an investment professional to create investment groups with different exposures and fee or commission structures and invest in bulk trades for each group.

The system automatically executes the order in bulk and manages the transaction automatically through each individual portfolio. So in effect, “we automate the asset manager’s back office, while giving the individual investor a view only platform from where she or he can monitor the manager’s transactions in real time,” he said.

Outside of the UAE, he said Qatar is a very interesting target. “We are keen to participate in the upcoming E-Trading international exhibition to be held in Qatar in early September so we can meet local industry players and assess the local market better.”

Currently, Swissquote has around 2,750 active spot futures trading accounts in the region. Around 60 per cent of those clients are resident in the UAE. The bank already has over 100 active trading accounts in the UAE.

“Our target is to have 1,200 banking customers in the UAE by 2015,” Camara said.