The Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) is aiming to expand its presence in the ultra high net worth (UNHW) client sector.
The bank has launched the Commonwealth Private Office to provide strategic investment advice for clients with more than $10 million in investable assets.
The office will be led by Ralf Haase, who joined the bank in March last year to establish the office, hire staff and implement technology systems.
"A couple of years ago, the bank put together a three-year strategic plan in which they realised that - whilst we are very good in terms of customer service to many of our customers - there were several components that weren't as adequately resourced as they should be," Haase said.
"One of them was on the investment advisory services for our high net worth and ultra high net worth clients. What the bank has done is it has committed a significant amount of resources to building out that particular area of expertise," he said.
Haase said the market in Australia for UHNW clients is between 3000 to 4000 families, or about $120 billion to $150 billion in size.
"It's about 0.5 per cent of the population. We have good traction and have signed up a number of clients, but in this business the acquisition is one client at a time," he said.
"If you look around the wealth management industry, for many institutions it often becomes a numbers game, that is, you hire a number of advisers and those advisers need to have 75 relationships that they need to look after.
"Given that we are focussing on people with significantly more wealth on average, the number of clients per relationship manager will be much lower. As such, we will be able to have a deeper and more meaningful relationship with each client because it will truly be a bespoke solution for every individual."
The private office has nine staff and is based in Sydney, but Haase expects to expand the number of branches nationally. The next step will be to set up an office in Melbourne, which he expects to have up and running within the next six months.
Haase joined CBA from Macquarie Private Bank, where he worked as an associate director for four years.
He also worked for 14 years at Goldman Sachs, where he managed the Private Wealth Management division in Germany.
