Would You Like Fries with That?

The title line is a time-tested sales technique that the fast food giants have used to ensure that they maximize selling opportunities.

Now when it come to banks and their trust services, expect to hear: Would you like life insurance with that? Would you like one of our bank's own high yield offshore structured ELN derivatives with that? Would you like a pet dog cremation endowment fund to go with that?

Now look at the recruiting advertisement below. If you require fiduciary services, then you may want to consider shopping elsewhere. Now banks are in business of making money and greed is good but when you are too stupid, politically incorrect or inconsiderate to make it a mission statement then you deserve to be ridiculed. How do you feel about a bank that is hiring someone specifically to squeeze every cent out of your trust? It's one thing to do it implicitly, it's another to do it explicitly.

It is a bit unfair to make a big deal out of an advertisement which the bank may not have drafted or approved as the ad was put out by a recruitment agency but there's enough there to know that this bank wants to hire a "miner", someone who's revenue driven. Can you trust your Trust Relationship Manager if you know he/she is approaching your case with an angle to make money? Your needs or problems are only their problem if there's money to be made. For this bank, making money from trustee services is not enough. Just like selling a burger is not enough. The trust has to be milked. You must order french fries too.

If you're the applicant, you better be prepared to meet assigned revenue goals. Things like fiduciary duty are secondary. Notice you don't even need to have "trust" experience? Just an university degree and client relationship management credentials.

Look at this ad closer:

• "to identify new business opportunities" Is this what being a trustee is about? You create trusts to serve a purpose, not create new business opportunities. How much will they care about things that they can't make money from? Guess how many transactions you will be asked to make with this trustee? After all, no transactions, means no revenue. You would better hope that they have another person that reviews cases to look for things like proper minuting, record keeping, accounting, exposure to tax and regulatory laws, the beneficiaries are where they are supposed to be, what their needs are, etc.......you know.....all the things besides "new business opportunities" that ensure you still have a valid trust or an effective trust.
• "trust cases are properly priced" Loosely translated that means milk the trust for all it's worth and price out the dogs with fleas. I have yet to see any empirical studies on pricing fiduciary risk. The big institutions have models that base pricing on numbers like "time spent" or "AUM" but pricing is largely a number being pulled out of a hat. Just make sure your cases are in the black. So sell a lot of services and financial products and lie on your time sheet. Guess how long before you get the trustee's resignation letter from this trustee if you insist on keeping the trust fund in an annuity or long-term bonds?
• "ensuring client satisfaction" Nice but isn't carrying out your duty as trustee, you know working for the beneficiaries of the trust, a little more paramount? I will side-step the "trustees have no clients" argument. Chocolates can give great satisfaction. Are chocolates always good for your teeth or waist line? Do these seem like the people that will take the chocolates away when they should? We all would prefer doctors that gave client satisfaction but if we had to make a choice wouldn't you rather have a doctor that cured more than anything else. Purpose before pleasure folks.
• "ensuring compliance" Compliance is a nice overused and abused buzzword these days. To put it in a job description is somewhat puzzling. Shouldn't compliance be implicit? Second-nature? Do you need to be told to be a law abiding citizen every day? Do you need to be told "thou shalt not steal" before you walk into the office? I guess you do if the place was a little lax in compliance in the first place or you hire people that don't come from a compliance-oriented industry.
• "all relevant policies & procedures" Notice how you don't need to comply with laws and regulations? Just our in-house policies and procedures. You're only as good as the policies and procedures you have. It's the stuff you do not have a policy or procedure in place for that should worry you. I find it funning they chose the word: "relevant". Were they expecting you to comply with irrelevant policies?
• "able to work independently with minimum supervision" That means your boss knows nothing or they're busy doing other things. It's your show. We all hate micro-managers. We love people that can work independently but where is the line where you can safely send out people that won't embarrass your organization or screw up? If you're someone with some 6-years experience, are you confident or know enough to work with minimum supervision? Who will you learn from? If you're the "client", does being with a AAA bank mean as much as you thought it would when your trust is in the hands of a marginal 30-something working under minimum supervision? Perhaps more accurately, the Trust Relationship Manager is likely working under the direct supervision of someone very senior............your Private Banker. The privilege of working independently should be earned not given.

This bank is probably not as senseless, cold-blooded money grabbers as I make them out to be but don't you just get a sense the business is being run by bankers who have lost sight of the woods for the (money) trees?

See for yourself:

Our client, a top tier Private Bank in Hong Kong, is now looking for a high calibre candidate to fill for the following post:

Trust Relationship Management

Post Date: 14 Dec 2009

Responsibilities

Service a portfolio of client relationships by:

• Reviewing client relationships and trust structures to identify new business opportunities
• Ensuring new and existing Trust cases are properly priced
• Ensuring client satisfaction
• Ensuring compliance with all relevant policies & procedures

Requirements

• Degree holder in law / accounting / business
• Fluent written and spoken English and Chinese (Mandarin) is a must
• Minimum 6 years of experience in client relationship management
• Traveling is required on needed basis
• Able to work independently with minimum supervision & details orientated