Chinatrust unveils new wealth-management unit

Chinatrust Commercial Bank (中國信託商銀), the flagship unit of Chinatrust Financial Holding Co (中信金控), yesterday unveiled its revamped wealth-management service, as a result of the lender last week becoming the nation's first bank to obtain the financial regulator's approval to run this lucrative business.

"Wealth-management service is all about providing [customer] solutions. That means selling the right [financial] products to the right customers," Huang Kuo-su (黃國思), Chinatrust Commercial's executive vice president governing the wealth-management unit, said yesterday.

To reach this goal, the bank had spent over NT$100 million on acquiring a set of computerized financial-advisory-system programs. It is planning to launch the advisory service on Jan. 1 next year, to enable it to give customers precise investment suggestions and regular reviews of portfolios after calculating their risk tolerance and life planning, the executive said.

The bank currently has over 200,000 wealth-management customers with personal assets valued at over NT$1 million each -- the threshold level for access to the bank's wealth-management service. Huang however declined to give a projection for the targeted number of customers next year.

Taipei Fubon Bank (台北富邦銀行) and Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行), who are also applying for the financial regulator's approval to present this service, reportedly set an entry threshold at NT$3 million worth of assets.

Chinatrust Commercial's move came after the Financial Supervisory Commission announced on July 21 a stricter requirement, demanding that financial service providers manage and sell products responsibly, in accordance with their customers' risk tolerance capability, when running a wealth-management business.