Banks fail their clients

Private banks have failed to understand investors, and are sending clients irrelevant information and ignoring their real needs.

Private banks have failed to understand investors, and are sending clients irrelevant information and ignoring their real needs.

At least that is the opinion of Ed Condran, who has recently come out of retirment to take over the top job at St George Private Bank.

"In my discussions with investors since retiring, I have found that many are upset by the information which is being sent out to them. They found it irrelevant and had thrown it away without reading it," Condran told the Asia Pacific Private Banking Forum.

Condran said the target market for private banks, older high net worth investors, should be tackled from the angle of what they need and want.

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"These investors are older people and have more time and are keen to investigate e-commerce and the Web," Condran says.

Condran said similar strategies in the US had also failed but more effective models had started to draw better results recently.

"People will give information freely if they see a benefit at the end. Wells Fargo bank provides investment models, answers questions but only after the investor has also supplied details about themselves," Condran says.

"This helps the bank in creating better focussed information for each type of in-vestor and is an opportunity to look for in the Australian market."

In supplying the needs of clients Condran says there is increasing demand for a single source of information.

"Clients would like to access one location, with all their investment data from dif-ferent sources funnelled into one report. The question then becomes whether we want to share client information with other providers," Condran says.