Koen Vanderhoydonk:
Welcome to another episode of the connector podcast and I’m here with today with Gordan at the event from Objectway live from Venice. So Gordan, who are you and who do you represent?

Gordan Torbica:
Hello, thanks for having me. My name is Gordan Torbica, I am Chief Operations Officer and Chief Risk Officer from Hauck Aufhäuser Lampe Private Bank (HAL) and I have been with the bank since 12 years, and I’m happy to be here and to join the Objectway Group.

Koen Vanderhoydonk:
So could you tell us and the audience a little bit more about the bank that you work for? I’ve heard that it’s a private bank. It’s a big one in Germany.

Gordan Torbica:
HAL is a private bank in Germany, it is a very focused bank in Germany, a very popular bank in Germany. Our I would say our focus customers, high net worth individual or ultra-high net worth individual.

Koen Vanderhoydonk:
When you talk about private banking you mean ultra-high net worth. So are these the rich and wealthy clients? Or do you see difference between an ultra-high net worth individual and a high worth customer? Because I think massive fluent, it’s probably not in your region, or maybe it is?

Gordan Torbica:
Massive fluent is not known in our region, but the difference between the high and the ultra-high is that they are more demanding. So, there must be more features in all your products and all your service offering.

Koen Vanderhoydonk:
I’ve been doing a bit of research myself too. And what I found particularly interesting is that over the last couple of years, you’ve done a couple of mergers and acquisitions. So, growth by actually in taking in other private banks. Or you could say from a technical point of view, this sounds like an easy job. But a private bank, it’s all about who you are, the tradition. We heard it today like being proud of being long in the business. So how do you do that cultural part?

Gordan Torbica:
So first of all, I would not admit that the technical part is easy. I will talk tomorrow on the panel how difficult it is to bring together two core banking systems and I will talk about the migration that we had with the last acquisition of Bankhaus Lampe. But of course, you’re right that the other side is hard as well, you need to find a DNA, that fits for for both worlds you put together to DNase mostly and you have to define a new one. You cannot press people in some kind of shapes, you have to let them evolve to develop and things like that. So that’s a pretty high thing. But in my view, we’ve done pretty well by now: our last acquisition has been the one with Sal. Oppenheim in Luxembourg, and the one we’ve done with Bankhaus Lampe in the last two years, and to me, it seems it worked out pretty well.

Koen Vanderhoydonk:
Actually funny, because Sal. Oppenheim used to be my customer Luxembourg a long time ago. It’s a small world? That’s just a statement, and I’ll let you judge whether I’m right or not. But is it maybe because the wealthier customers, they are more high demanding, so at the same time, it’s probably also more easy to adapt them into a new world because it’s all about the customer at the end.

Gordan Torbica:
Of course, you’re right. It’s all about the customer. But there are no two identical private banks and no two identical service offerings. So, you always need to adapt. And, and this is in my view, this is the biggest challenge of all, but when you try hard you can do it and in my view book are pretty fine.

Koen Vanderhoydonk:
And while we talk about differences, so there’s one thing about cultural differences, and maybe I made it sound too easy for systems to integrate. If you look at Europe, like having a single European market. We far from there if we talk about taxes, so how does that work? Because I hear you say a Luxembourg bank versus a German bank. So how do you deal with all these taxes?

Gordan Torbica:
Taxes it’s a real topic let’s say it’s an issue. Because, of course, you’re right that taxation is different in every country. So, you need a good system in the heart, you need a good core banking system that can cover all the requirements. Without that it’s not possible to expand to other countries.

Koen Vanderhoydonk:
You’re a special kind in that sense because you’re both the CEO and the CRO. So an immediate question that came to my mind is, how are you combining the operational mandate versus the risk mandate?

Gordan Torbica:
We’ve heard that today on the panel. So, I would say the regulation and the things around the regulations can be innovation drivers. And in my view, it’s quite normal to have these two jobs combined in one, because we need to cover the regulation and of course we need to innovate. And that’s what we do with it and and things like that. So for me, it’s quite normal.

Koen Vanderhoydonk:
You’re traditionally in Germany, do you think that a German customer per se, is different than any other typical European customer, if you talk about ultra-high worth?

Gordan Torbica:
To be honest I don’t have that much experience outside of Germany. So, I cannot really tell, I can tell that German customers are very demanding. They’re often own a company; they have established a firm and they have gained success. Often, they are market leader, even if you don’t know their names. So these people are very special, and they know exactly what they want.

Koen Vanderhoydonk:
If you talk in your domain, today, we talked a lot about innovation, sustainability, all this stuff. So, what for you will be the drivers of success for the bank that you’re running today?

Gordan Torbica:
The driver for success is of course, one thing that is, I would say the most important is the ability to adapt, you need the ability to adapt, you need the ability to transform, you need to I would say except that constant change is the only winning idea.

Koen Vanderhoydonk:
And is this something that you’ve found today resonating during the event and in the speeches made?

Gordan Torbica:
In my view, yes. They’re talking a lot about future, about innovation and things like that. And they’re talking about trust. And I think that these are the most important topics.

Koen Vanderhoydonk:
And are you guys also heavily focused on sustainability? Is this something that you are triggered by your customers?

Gordan Torbica:
It’s both: we are triggered by our customers and we want to be a sustainable company and we want to offer sustainable products. Because we see that this is inevitable for companies and it’s something that will be quite common in the future.

Koen Vanderhoydonk:
Thank you so much for joining us in this session, Gordon. I hope you have a nice rest of the event. And thank you so much.

Gordan Torbica:
Thanks for having me. Goodbye.