As a wealth manager Yuanta Securities (Yuanta) dominates its home market where it controls 36.37% of this sector. Holding the lion’s share of Taiwan’s local securities industry makes it the go-to brokerage for retail clients.
As of the end of June 2018, the firm had assets under management (AUM) of NTD45.15 billion ($1.46 billion).
This year, this stand-out success was recognised by FinanceAsia editors who awarded the firm - Best Broker - in the prestigious and long-standing Country Awards for Achievement 2018.
Yuanta Securities obtained approval for its wealth management business in 2011 and the firm’s overseas expansion began with a series of M&A. These included the 2014 purchase of a 53.1% equity stake of TONGYANG Securities (now known as Yuanta Korea) and the acquisition of PT AmCapital Indonesia (now PT Yuanta Securities Indonesia) in 2015.
In 2016, it acquired KKTrade Securities (renamed Yuanta Thailand). In the same year the firm restructured its 147 traditional brokerage branches, turning them into comprehensive wealth management branches. This strategic move resulted in profits increasing by 40%, over and above 2015 results.
The firm became a majority stakeholder (99.95%) in The First Securities Joint Stock Company (renamed Yuanta Securities Vietnam Joint Stock Company) in 2017.
By 2017, 15% of Yuanta’s total income was created by foreign subsidiaries, further highlighting the company’s efforts to diversify income and its internationalisation plans.
Q: What steps are you taking to become the best financial services provider in the Asia-Pacific region?
Tony Wang: Like our securities peers, we recognise the need for globalisation. Yuanta is the most aggressive among domestic competitors and we compare favourably to other regional securities firms.
We operate in Hong Kong, Thailand, Vietnam, Korea, Indonesia, Cambodia and mainland China and we are building our Hong Kong subsidiary as a financial hub to connect markets in Taiwan, Korea, Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia, and we’re developing products and platforms to amplify our advantage of cross-borders financing.
So we have already started on the journey to become the best financial services provider in the APAC region. If we can leverage our group resources and consolidate local intelligence from our subsidiaries, we believe we can create more synergies together.
Q: How does Yuanta Securities Hong Kong (YSHK) integrate into the business and how do you attract cross border transactions and global clients.
Sharon Chen: Yuanta Securities has restructured our overseas platform to accelerate and deepen our regional reach with YSHK as our Asian hub.
Hong Kong attracts high levels of inbound and outbound investment, it’s also the gateway to mainland China, and a regional financial hub. Low-tax rates, a well-established financial infrastructure and a free market makes Hong Kong attractive to potential investors. YSHK endeavours to serve local clients as well as clients from our group’s extensive network.
We believe our clients want their private wealth to be managed holistically, therefore our team of professional wealth managers provides a variety of investing strategies that meet the needs of individual clients.
Q: How do you customise and tailor wealth management plans to meet individual client needs?
Tony Wang: Taiwan is facing a rapidly aging population, so for these clients, we focus mainly on retirement, long-term care and tax planning. We divide clientele into nine groups, sorted by high, middle and low income and this is cross referenced with elderly, middle-aged and young age groups.
Our sales representatives and a 200 strong team of wealth management professionals work together to build customised plans for clients. Yuanta’s unique service combines stock investment and cash-flow creation for each client.
Our goal is to custom-build a complete wealth management plan for each customer. For example, high net worth clients aged between 65-75 are concerned about inheritance and daily cash inflows.
Both Yuanta Securities and Yuanta Insurance work together to help clients see inheritance as an opportunity, and we help our clients with appropriate arrangements for life insurance and trust instruments denominated in foreign or Taiwanese currencies. Clients can also invest in inheritance insurance that provides benefits in 10-20 instalments with our customised insurance plan.
Client aged between 40-50 are more focused on family medical insurance. Our trusted relationship with our clients means Yuanta’s care plans support their needs for long-term disability and unlimited medical insurance for specific injuries.
Our clients become like family. When setting up their financial plan, we not only care for each individual client, but also their whole family. Words gets around, and we are most satisfied when a high-end client refers friends to us. This proves we’ve done our job right.
Q: What do you see as the firm’s keys to success?
Tony Wang: Our people are the keys to our success. Yuanta started as a local broker but we now have around 7,400 employees worldwide. We believe in cultivating talent and that’s been an important part of our company’s history for the past 50 years. It is also one reason why we have become the largest broker in Taiwan.
And we’re also looking to the future. In 2008, we initiated an MA program to cultivate our future management team and we have a complementary plan for key talent development as part of our overseas expansion.
More information about Yuanta Securities is available here
