CIMBT’s rich clients shift to hi-yield products

The fixed deposits of “preferred” customers now stand at Bt60 billion to Bt70 billion, down from between Bt70 billion and Bt80 billion.
 Adisorn Sermchaiwong, senior executive vice president, said yesterday that preferred customers had allocated about Bt10 billion of their deposits to investment products, especially debentures.
CIMBT is one of the leading players in bond underwriting and corporate bond trading, so its customers can profit from capital gains.
The trading service helps increase investors’ liquidity, as they do not have to hold debentures until maturity.
Depositors will receive interest from fixed deposits when their term ends, so investing in debentures in the secondary market is more flexible than fixed deposits, he said.
The bank will increase collaboration with CIMB-Principal Asset Management Co and the treasury group of the bank to design investment products to cater to the needs of wealthy customers.
In the second half of this year, CIMBT aims to sell investment products worth Bt20 billion to Bt30 billion, of which Bt15 billion is expected to be mutual funds, followed by Bt5 billion to Bt10 billion of debentures and Bt3 billion to Bt5 billion of structured notes.
Mutual funds remain the popular product for wealthy customers. The bank aims to sell Bt24 billion worth of mutual funds this year, similar to last year. About Bt9 billion will be high-fee mutual funds and the rest low-fee.
“We might not achieve sales of low-fee mutual funds because their return is unattractive, but we’re confident of achieving [sales targets] in high-fee mutual funds because we sold Bt4 billion of the CIMB Principal Strategic Income Fund, one of the high-fee mutual funds, in the first half,” Adisorn said.
“And in only one month of the second half, we sold Bt5 billion of this product.”