The UAE is home to more than 50 banks serving a population of just over 9 million people. This offers up a wide range of choices for various services, including wealth management. In fact, affluent customers often choose to diversify their assets across institutions, trusting their bank-appointed relationship manager (RM) to manage their investments optimally.

The responsibility of the relationship manager, however, also extends to enhancing the bank’s wallet-share. While this triggers competition among banks, the customers tend to benefit from the constant push to attract greater wealth investment. Crucial to this dynamic is choosing a relationship manager who understands the needs of the customer, and clients need to only check for two critical attributes — the 2 A’s — which is the right ‘Attitude’ and ‘Aptitude’.

The first A — Attitude is reflected in the below attributes from a Relationship Manager:

•Proactiveness: It is not enough to respond promptly but to deliver to timelines that exceeds client expectations. In addition, market dynamics keep changing. Not everyone will be able to see how certain new developments could affect their investments. A good RM is one who keeps their clients informed proactively of opportunities in the market. More importantly, they inform them of dangers to their portfolio due to change in market conditions.

•Service-oriented: Zig Ziglar famously said, “You will get all you want in life, if you help enough other people get what they want.” Service more than sales, needs to be a part of a good wealth manager’s DNA. A good RM often go beyond the ‘call of duty’ to get things done for the customer.

•Need Based Discussions: There is no one-size-fits-all solution for wealth management. Managers need to understand the client’s needs before proposing an investment solution.

•Honest, Transparent and Trustworthy: In most cases, priority customers invest their life savings with a bank. RMs have a huge responsibility to the customer, to nurture this delicate trust system. After all, as an investor, it is important that you understand all the nitty-gritties of the investment. A good RM will showcase all the risks and charges and not just the profits — thus earning your trust.

•Long-term View: The pressures of the industry can often tempt managers to chase their own short-term targets; a good RM’s priorities must be aligned with the customer’s growth objectives — thus retaining the relationship — sometimes, for life.

When it comes to the second A — Aptitude, it’s important to look for some of the obvious traits. Experience and market knowledge are critical for a good relationship manager. In addition to this, the manager’s ability to paint a picture of the client’s future financial security can make a huge difference in the long run. An effective RM needs to be able to help plan for short-term as well as long-term goals of the clients. Sometimes clients ask for specific financial solutions, but a good RM will evaluate the risk threshold of the client and even propose alternate solutions that are apt for the client by offering informed advice that shifts the customer’s view about new wealth-growth opportunities.

The recent Fintech wave has proposed ideas of digitised wealth solutions and even financial advice from robots or other software. But at the core of every ‘relationship’ is the human interaction and therefore technology will act as an ‘enabler’ rather than as a ‘replacement’ to the client-RM bond. If anything, technology is only going to enhance the strength of this relationship.

At Noor Bank, our endeavour has always been to identify people who display these two crucial traits through our rigorous recruitment process. It does not end there. Good relationship managers need to show their customers that they understand the unique challenges that go hand in hand with optimising on assets and wealth, and help the customers identify the best products and solutions to address those challenges. This means the onus is on the banks to continually prioritise in honing these two skill sets on a regular basis. Attitude and aptitude together, will determine the altitude that an RM will scale.

— The writer is Head of Priority Banking at Noor Bank. Views expressed in the column are the writer’s own and do not reflect those of the newspaper.