UBI Top Private, the specialized Private Banking division of UBI Banca, one of the top five Italian players in the sector, was presented today at the Italian Stock Exchange.
The division, in fact already operational for about two months, took shape at the end of the process of creating the "Single Bank" launched by the UBI Group in the second half of 2016 and envisaged in the 2019/20 Business Plan. The Single Bank has envisaged the merger into the Parent Company of the seven network banks previously controlled, which constituted the backbone of the federal group. Evolution has made it possible to enhance the realities that give life to the group also through the creation of two specialized divisions: Top Private Banking and Corporate and Investment Banking. This means that a new segmentation of customers was carried out for the private sector, bringing into the division customers with assets greater than one million euro.
The division, led by Riccardo Barbarini (previously General Manager of Banca Regionale Europea) is divided into 22 Top Private Centers which, in turn, coordinate 40 operating points throughout the country, in which approximately 240 Private Relationship Managers, of the bank. UBI Top Private has approximately 32.000 customers and ranks among the top five operators in the sector in Italy, with over 32 billion euro of assets under management.
“To operate at its best in a market characterized by high quality standards, such as the Italian one, UBI Banca has invested to differentiate itself from its competitors, focusing on a further increase in quality and on advanced advisory models, through the enhancement of talents and professionals, technical and behavioral training, the evolution of the spaces dedicated to meetings with private customers, simplification and technological innovation”, said Riccardo Barbarini, Head of UBI Top Private. “We believe that the key to our success lies in the ability to provide a personalized service in which professionalism, confidentiality, consultancy skills, supported by advanced technology, are oriented towards finding solutions that satisfy the customer”.
Private Banking has now arrived at a Wealth Management approach, moving from a logic of satisfying needs relating to asset management alone to the ability to satisfy the needs of the family unit at 360° (therefore both relating to assets and to various needs between such as generational change, corporate governance and asset protection). Private customers increasingly require management with customized service models with respect to needs differentiated by target (individuals, entrepreneurs, businesses, institutions) and by asset bracket (High Net Worth Individual and Ultra HNWI): this set of observations have forced the evolution of the role of the UBI Banca professional, who has gone from investment consultant to global consultant, i.e. Private Relationship Manager.
Thanks to the presence of the UBI Banca Group in the most economically active areas of the country with around 80% of loans made in Lombardy, Piedmont and Lazio (regions from which over 40% of Italy's GDP comes), the UBI Top Private division has an important growth plan and further development of the Relationship Manager network with important growth targets through the introduction of 50 new professionals in three years. High professional seniority, combined with specific technical and behavioral competence in the integral management of customers and the desire to marry a long-term industrial project characterize the Institute's network development policies.
