Emilios Tannousis is the Manager Wealth Management at Bank of Cyprus. With an experience of almost 20 years in the Wealth and Asset management industry he is covering the Private Banking and the Institutional Wealth Management units of the Bank. He is responsible for guiding the Private Banking teams in covering the banking and the investment needs of local & foreign Private clients, UHNW individuals and their families. He has been heading for 6 years the Institutional Wealth Management desk of the Bank covering Institutional clients’ investments and wealth management portfolios.
Previously he has served as Head Asset Management in LFS Ltd and Senior Asset Manager in COOP Central Bank. He started his career as a Financial Analyst and a Foreign Fund Manager in Demetra Investments in collaboration with Ryan Beck & Co, New York. Emilios is a holder of BSc (Honours) in Economics and Finance from the University of Indianapolis, USA and MSc holder in Economic Development and International Finance from the University of Reading, UK. He is a Fellow Charter Certified Accountant (FCCA), member of the ICPAC and a founding member of CIFA. He is also a member of the Charter Institute of Securities and Investments (CISI) National Advisory Council in Cyprus, heading the Wealth Management Committee.
“The Cyprus economy and Banks in Cyprus have been ‘extrovert’ for many years now. We have long experience in working closely with international clients, corporations and with high-net-worth individuals (HNWI) from around the globe.
Cyprus has had a growing servicing economy based on foreign direct investments and professional services since the 1980s and has its own sizeable HNWI and Ultra HNWI market. These affluent individuals have worked with us at Bank of Cyprus either as part of managing successfully their businesses, but also their personal and family wealth.
We have experienced further market growth on the wealth management space after our membership to the European Union and then the Eurozone. Many foreign UHNW individuals relocated to Cyprus or chose Cyprus as their 2nd home and business destination. This was because of the very good climate and the ease of doing business, plus the quality of the infrastructure and the lifestyle. Most recently, we’ve had an influx of technology companies and other multinationals establishing regional headquarters accompanied by their owners and their company executives enjoying the same benefits.
Cyprus is also gaining attraction on the wealth and asset management space due to its stable corporate and legal framework, Tannousis adds.
“Cyprus has the positive characteristics of an established market as part of the European Union, abided by the Pan-European regulatory framework and Directives, it’s legal framework based on Common law, as well as the international accounting and financial reporting standards. All these enable Cyprus to promote itself as an established player in the HNWI spectrum.”
Clients in that spectrum bring their own very high standards to wealth management services, Tannousis notes.
“Technology today permits clients to choose their financial partners at any location, while living at another. Much of our work goes through digital channels, and Cyprus has had to develop a comparable offer with other markets. The scale of the services to these high net worth individuals is of paramount importance. And this has two prerequisites: first, our people, the human capital that it is educated up to the high level standards of European and international levels and the technology, the systems that we need to use in order to meet the demands and the needs with speed and enhanced digital experience of these demanding clients.”
Meeting these demands places a value challenge on all market participants.
“As Bank of Cyprus, we can meet this challenge thanks to the high quality of our human capital. They are educated and trained in all the aspects of wealth management, asset management, financial planning, estate planning, advisory services. They not only meet client expectations and offer customised financial solutions, but they are also fully abided as regards investor protection and the compliance framework as defined by our regulators. It is to our people that our clients will entrust their savings and their investments. The long established international professional bodies that our people are members of help maintain quality service with continuing training, and updates on regulatory changes,” Tannousis points out.
Now in terms of technology, clients today expect a full-scale digital transformation.
“Before the pandemic, it was in the initial plans of every organisation to proceed into this digital new world that we are now facing. This was also true for the banking system and for our bank, but also for other wealth management providers, financial institutions and corporates. The pandemic accelerated this process, forcing organisations to work via digital channels, providing the customer experience in a very different way. At our bank, we are working on various projects as regards the digital transformation of the bank. This comes with very, very high standards: Online banking, mobile apps, digital channels, electronic trading platforms. In parallel, digital transformation is equally important to the internal processes of banks, because it will first of all, remove red tape and improve efficiency, but at the same time it will safeguard high level of standardised compliance on internal processes. So, it’s a combination of enhanced customer service, keeping the momentum and positive expectations with our clients, but at the same time, becoming more efficient and effective in doing business.
Some wealth managers are working on full automation on their offering. As Bank of Cyprus we want to combine this kind of transformation with our personal interaction with the client, Tannousis says.
“We are very keen to keep the customer relationship personal and introduce the digital journey to our clients. Building a relationship with trust depends on having two human beings sitting down together and finding solutions, investment solutions and wealth planning solutions.” Tannousis insists.
Quite important, technology can enhance financial advice, providing speedy solutions to what the two parties will sit down and agree upon. This kind of technology is an added value service, with enhanced features to enable a much more fruitful personal discussion with an advisor. We can also use technology for improved communications with the client, who can be at any other location.
We will end up using some form of automated advisory for some parts of the process, but it will be one part of doing business with the client and not the only one. It will be the tool to facilitate the trusted relationship of the private banker, and the high-net-worth client.”
Advisory management is very much based on the advisor trusted relationship with the client, Tannousis notes.
“We focus on careful diversification and asset allocation. mitigating investment risks through selective strategies that meet the client’s profile. Many of our clients trust us to develop their portfolios. They are satisfied that a team of professionals is working with them and is implementing a strategy that is appropriate for them. The client’s choices, in terms of geographic allocation, types of investment, and risk level are implemented by our professionals, and our client can eventually build and develop their global portfolio, on all financial markets and in all asset classes.”
Cyprus, Tannousis says, offers a particularly favourable environment for private banking and wealth management services.
“Of course, in order to have high level private banking, we need to compete with the standards of our European competitors. So, our competition is not local. Many of our clients are not local. I’m sure that they also work with other banks in various jurisdictions throughout Europe, Middle East, Asia and the U.S. So, we are talking about an international client base in this respect. We need to provide state-of-the-art customised solutions, similar to what is being provided by major banks in the world.
Now, as a small country, we have short distances between cities and can thus maintain a close relationship with clients anywhere on the island. This helps a lot observing that our client is really happy that somebody is working with him on a very personal basis.
At the same time, we are indeed in close touch with our international clients abroad thanks to the good communications infrastructure in Cyprus. Our clients come from all over the world, and they have no difficulty working with us. When they cannot reach us in person, we reach out to them through our digital channels.
At Bank of Cyprus we provide all the major services that other global banks offer to their clients. To that respect, we are cooperating with all the major banks in the world for Global Execution, FX, Hedging strategies and yield enhancement products; we work with the biggest custodians in the world as our sub custodians.
So, we’re working with European and US names, as the hubs of doing business for our clients. And at the same time, we are part of the international markets’ spectrum. So, what this means, in terms of a HNWI, is that we can offer strong regulatory framework and compliance framework through our local regulators, as well as the highest level of providing investment services through our Global counterparties. All of this creates an offer of the same standard that HNWI are accustomed to.
Our standards are of the highest. We are not talking about being there only halfway, we want to be part of the top wealth management servicing financial institutions firstly for our clients.
When you are talking about ultra-high-net-worth clients, they have usually worked with major banks around the world already. It is part of the means to diversify risk for that kind of client, having various banks to work with in various countries. At Bank of Cyprus we want to be part of their selection, of this allocation of their choices for wealth management services. And I believe that yes, we can work on that and we will be successful.
