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00:00Let's get to Xena Stop Vonnie Quinn CEO who joins us now. Good morning to you. As you know really nice to speak to you. You talk about the drivers being very strong demand from digital investing clients for structured products. That's what's been driving your pre-tax profits. This is digital access for your private investors. Tell us what it is that in particular has caught your eye in this reporting period. Then what really has been the driver. Yes first of all thanks for having me. What has really been catching my ISE is actually all business lines all segments have been doing very well. So operating income up 25 percent asset management up 17 percent. Other institutional client segments up 32 percent. Wealth management up 9 percent. And especially also the net new money growth of annualized 6 percent which I think also compares very nicely in the industry perspective shows that we do win market share and win clients across the board. But self guided investors have really done a lot in H1. Investing is the you saving self guided investors understand that they need to tap into different return sources and we serve them through our digital investing. You just. A great set of results you know really good profits there. What are you going to do with all your excess capital. Is this going to be used for acquisitions. Is it going to be used to return to shareholders. Or is it gonna be used for compensation. Yea. So you know we have a very particular shareholder structure so we have a controlling family shareholder with a fair shareholder structure one share one vote and we see this as one of our competitive advantages. So we tend to have a very long term approach to almost everything we do. And that's also when we talk about our capital position. We have a very reliable very solid dividend policy and we have now a track record that goes back many many decades that we are regular reliable robust dividend payers. Obviously the current capital position of fourteen point five percent C to one gives us ample optionality. We're also very proud that we can say that the organic investments compound that the return on equity of eighteen point seven percent. So I think calls of the money we reinvest in the business creates value for our shareholders. But this gives us room to consider both organic developments as well as an organic options. OK. And you too. Cause I know you talked about the net new money you've seen coming into the business. What are your thoughts on clients activity as we get into the second half. What he's going to be sustainable. How are you planning for the second half. Well you know first of all a July August and December usually happen in H2. So it's never very wise to linearly extrapolate H1 into H2 or there is some seasonality in our business. But what we have seen in H1 this that especially in Q1 the massive increases in interest rates really impacted the willingness and the decisiveness of CAC of clients to allocate capital. Now in queue to day return more to the to the status quo to the going concern conviction that capital needs to be invested in in markets. We also see a pretty resilient behavior in self guided investors that they want to tap into markets. So we currently we see a decent robustness of client activity also going into July. Why did you decide to bring forward your vast investment in UK fund manager 24 Asset Management rather than trying to buy an alternative name or asset manager in Switzerland. 24 has been a great success story for everybody. First and foremost for declines in front of the team and the partners and 24 and that that from top level you have become a majority shareholder in 2015. The acquisition has over delivered against all targets. Payback return to shareholders growth. We have now found a way to put everything into a fully future proof setup fully aligned incentives for everybody. The partners flipped their twenty four shares in a significant part then two on top of shares fully aligned interests going forward. The transaction structure will add an additional 2 percentage points to the return on equity from total shareholders and 24 simply is a wonderful company. It it runs very promising very strong investment strategies that compete in some of the largest asset pools into world predominantly in multi sector bonds. And that is simply a huge opportunity for everybody clients staff for income for yield for return. And the capabilities of 24 can help then. And with the global footprint to fund total we can create a lot more going forward. So we've made a lot of sense to align everybody and to move forward with a fully aligned set of. Can I ask you about what kind of appetite you see amongst the client base as I know for crypto assets then. Is there much client interest to you. Do you offer it in some areas with caution. What's what's the strategy. We've talked about the digital access for for private investors. I wonder I wonder what they're asking for when it comes to crypto. The army no group no clients have an interest in debt less its clients have an interest in then in crypto currencies. We believe that the underlying technology is actually more important than certain types of applications. We believe down the line block chain technology is the logic consequence of the general trend of securitization because it's the only available technology that can create trust. Live out the central counterproductive. We will see matrix changes coming out of that going forward. What we offer to our clients is that we've read some crypto currencies in a secure convenient easy to handle away and clients appreciate that and allocate part of their wealth to the.

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Vontobel CEO Sees Some Wealthy Clients Allocating to Crypto

Vontobel Chief Executive Officer Zeno Staub said he sees some wealthy clients interested in allocating a portion of their assets to cryptocurrencies. Staub, speaking during a Bloomberg TV interview, said that blockchain technology will bring significant changes to the financial sector but that the bank is restricting its activities in cryptocurrencies to offering access in a secure way to some of the leading ones. He speaks to Bloomberg's Anna Edwards on "Bloomberg Markets: European Market Open." (Source: Bloomberg)

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