Deutsche Bank has focused entirely on private banking and investment advice in Belgium. And that is paying off, says CEO Olivier Delfosse.
While in the past the bank mainly focused on retail customers, Deutsche Bank Belgium has opted for a different business model in recent years. The emphasis shifted to advising wealthy clients. This transformation helped ensure that the bank achieved 15 percent more income in our country by 2023. There was also a record year in the growth of customer assets, says Oliver Delfosse, the CEO of the Belgian branch of the German major bank.
Like other financial institutions, the bank benefited from the increased interest rates. But it’s mainly the focus private banking and wealth management that bears fruit, Delfosse emphasizes. Deutsche Bank Belgium now has only 150,000 customers, compared to more than 300,000 five years ago. But in the same period, assets under management (including savings) increased to 24 billion euros.
“We manage more assets with a lot fewer clients,” says Delfosse. “We have had many retail clients leave, but the growth in private banking and wealth management has more than made up for that loss.”
No longer interested in retail customers
The small saver has therefore made way for large assets at Deutsche Bank Belgium. “When we welcome a new customer, he brings thirty times more resources,” says Delfosse. Deutsche Bank succeeded, among other things, in attracting more wealthy customers by lowering the entry threshold for private banking from one million to half a million euros.
Delfosse does not hide the fact that retail customers hardly interest him anymore: “We no longer invest in a strategy that should bring us retail customers. This means that we no longer want to compete with the major banks, which mainly use savings interest rates as a weapon of war. Deutsche Bank Belgium wants to be the best when it comes to advice, personal service and depth of the range of investment products. We want to make a difference in this.”
Not just discretionary management
Deutsche Bank says it does not limit itself to discretionary management and standard solutions for all customers. “We still provide advice on individual effects,” says Delfosse. “The proof of this is that 75 percent of share transactions are carried out digitally by the customers themselves, but in most cases these are preceded by human contact with one of our advisors.”
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