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Case Study

Vontobel Deritrade: Platform development

By James E. Henderson, Natacha Akribas, Amrou Hassanein, Philippe Schenk and Grigory Terentyev

17 pages

November 2019

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Reference: IMD-7-2093

This case illustrates how Vontobel, a mid-size Swiss private bank successfully built out its multi-issuer platform for Structured Products (SPs). The case starts by describing the industry of SPs, the market for SPs in Switzerland, and on Vontobel building its know-how in SPs. As a result, deritrade® Single-Issuer Platform (SIP) was launched in 2010. The platform helped gain operational efficiency, relieve employees from doing manual operations and thus allow scarce resources to focus on the core businesses. The bank then gained experience in the market with its SIP. Once the SIP delivered its full power and the SP market stagnated, Vontobel considered opening its platform to its competitors to become a Multi-Issuer Platform (MIP). Yet, there were numerous challenges faced by the company with this decision: cannibalization, convincing competitors to join, pricing, and governance.

Learning Objective

Gaining some insights and understanding of the world of structured products.
The economic logic of multi issuer platforms.
Understand the implementation challenges to move from a single issuer to multi issuer platform.

Keywords

Strategy, Private Banking, Platform Strategy, Product, Disruptive Business Model, Technology, Structured Product

Settings

Switzerland
Vontobel Holding, Finance and Insurance, Banking
2010-2012

Type

Field Research

Available Languages

English

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