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How are your clients’ needs evolving?

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We provide services to external asset managers, institutional clients, ultra-high net worth individuals, family offices, pension funds and our own asset management division. Our strength today lies in our ability to serve a highly diverse range of clients, all with their own specific concept of Real Estate and Private Equity investment, depending on their strategy and experience. Despite the variety in their approach, most of our clients expect customised reporting solutions, both in terms of the content and its look and feel; in addition, we see more and more requests to provide insights on “best practice” in administration of the whole structure along with regular data feeds to populate client systems. In a fast-changing world, the central client requirement is a desire to work with experienced service providers. As one client said recently: “I have been working 20 years in Private Equity and Real Estate, and I expect to work with similarly experienced partners.”

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“With €650 billion in assets serviced in Asset Servicing, Credit Suisse can draw on the scale of its capabilities.”

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How do you organise your services?

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We organise our services by asset class rather than by function, which is aligned to our client’s requirements and expectations. This ensures that our team understands the entire value chain and facilitates a highly interactive and efficient client service model. Whilst organising by function may work for liquid assets, it is less efficient in  the illiquid space, where a strong partnership is needed, especially during the establishment of investment structures. We need to actively communicate with our clients in order to ask the right questions and anticipate all events that are likely to happen during the life cycle of a fund. With €650 billion in assets serviced within Asset Servicing, Credit Suisse can draw on the scale of its capabilities, which include expertise in many asset servicing specialities and systems that can deliver automation at every level of the value chain. The illiquid investment sector is clearly benefiting from the increasing diversification of asset allocation, and hybrid strategies are becoming increasingly common. We help asset managers in their transition by making the process very easy to follow, if they already have a relationship with us or indeed, if they are new to Credit Suisse.

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What development do you anticipate in this sector?

We see strong momentum in Private Equity and anticipate strong growth there over the next two years at least. Swiss pension funds for example are currently under-invested in this asset class. Real Estate also has significant upside potential, even if certain markets are more mature. It is our intention to serve our clients during the whole life cycle of their investment structures, building up a stable and reliable collaboration on all levels. At Asset Servicing, we serve clients across the entire value chain, including management company services and custody. We have also observed that there is a focus on data and in some sense “data is the product”, for example, for the purpose of AIFMD reporting, we are positioning ourselves to assist our clients in this area. Luxembourg is becoming a major hub for Private Equity and Real Estate funds, and we aim to ensure Asset Servicing continues to grow as a central player in this very positive dynamic.