The last two years have seen remarkable changes happening. However, some few staples remain. The DACH region is one of the largest banking markets in the world. The region is characterised by a strong economy and a large affluent population with around EUR 6 trillion in liquid onshore assets. Of course, there are differences between the markets. For example, Swiss banks traditionally have their strengths in the steadily growing ultra-HNWI and HNWI client segment.

Banks in Germany and Austria are increasingly tapping into this client group and are also very successful in the affluent segment.

The competitive pressure is enormous. More than 2,000 banks are active in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, driven by the need to modernise their digital capabilities, offer differentiated, customer-oriented solutions and reduce total cost of ownership.

The banking industry and its providers live in a customer pull economy

Tokenisation/blockchain, cloud, APIs, artificial intelligence, democratisation of wealth management, RoboAdvisory, mobile first, UX/UI and more than 11,000 FinTechs worldwide are driving tremendous innovation and momentum in the financial sector, particularly in wealth management, retail banking, capital markets and investment banking, virtual marketplaces and the payments sector.

These trends have been changing the classic and traditional banking business for some time. The customer is moving more and more into the centre. Customer centricity is no longer a buzzword

One of the biggest changes is tokenisation, which brings many advantages: low administrative costs, trustworthy proof of ownership, high transaction speed. All assets such as physical, conventional securities and non-physical assets can be tokenised.

With changing demographics, new customer behaviour and technological advances, asset managers and banks have a unique opportunity to gain market share.

We see that banks are increasingly looking to adopt digital technologies.

Customer-centric business is in our DNA, especially in the current never normal scenario where clients are increasingly migrating towards the heart of digital thinking. Within the growing DACH markets, we are challenged to win new customers, retain existing ones, increase customer satisfaction and expand share of wallet. Accelerating time to market – developing new products/offers – that is exactly our mission.