This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on November 29, 2018 - December 5, 2018

KUALA LUMPUR: OCBC Bank Malaysia Bhd (OCBC Malaysia) has unveiled Premier Life Goals, a specialised platform for affluent individuals to plan for their own and loved ones’ future based on their “life goals”.

The platform is an expansion of the OCBC Life Goals that was launched earlier this year, and the bank is looking to further expand its premier banking customer base growth — which is now at double digits year-on-year — with this new platform.

As the name implies, the platform is to provide premier banking clients with a multi-pronged approach featuring transfer of wealth and the retirement of a spouse, alongside the fundamentals offered by OCBC Life Goals, OCBC Malaysia said in a statement yesterday.

The vastly differing needs of the affluent makes Premier Life Goals a necessary development, said OCBC Malaysia’s head of branch distribution and premier banking, Anne Leh.

“For the masses, the priority is to accumulate the required amounts to ensure they are able to retire comfortably and see to the key obligation of their children’s education.

“The case is markedly different for the affluent, who are more concerned about seeing to all of this while ensuring their wealth gets transferred properly in due course and that their loved ones’ futures are duly secured according to their wishes,” she said.

OCBC Malaysia said customers will be assisted by their OCBC premier relationship managers who will go through with them a comprehensive financial assessment that ends with a summary of where he or she stands in relation to their stated goals. The programme then suggests broad customisable financial solutions on how to move forward.

“This is our goal-based advisory where we start off by understanding the clients’ needs. Once we know where a person stands in relation to his or her goals, our premier relationship managers are able to walk them through a range of financial solutions to grow their investments in a disciplined manner alongside optimising returns through a diversified portfolio that provides potential capital and/or regular returns.

“There is also an active investing option that provides for short-term products that leverage on market opportunities when there is a surplus for use,” said Leh.

The solutions offered would involve sophisticated products backed by OCBC’s wealth advisory team’s services and delivered through the premier one team, a dedicated team of specialists. These include endowment plans, unit trusts, bonds, dual currency investments and structured investments.

“Value-added services provided would include foreign currency solutions for child education, overseas property financing and retirement plans and wealth transfer recommendation. Our business banking solutions are there too for our customers who have their own businesses,” Leh added.