Corporate Center

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The Corporate Center steers, controls and combines the central functions within the LLB Group. It drives the Group’s corporate development, including IT systems, and pursues the goal of improving the efficiency of processes, as well as expanding and improving the quality of our services.

Service provider and enabler within the Group

The Corporate Center contains the Group CEO (see chapter “Strategy and organisation”), Group CFO (see chapter “Finance and risk management”) and Group COO Divisions. All the departments, which coordinate and monitor group-wide business activities, processes and risks, are integrated in this segment.

The Corporate Center focuses completely on the requirements of the market divisions and thereby makes a direct contribution to the value added by the LLB Group. It played a key role in the realisation of the StepUp2020 strategy, which was successfully completed in the 2021 business year.

Shared Service Centers

The shared service centers in the LLB Group represent an important element of successful corporate governance. Here the shared services, such as the maintenance of client master file data, payment transfers, foreign exchange and securities transactions, are provided centrally from one source. This facilitates efficient operations.

In 2021, volumes and the level of complexity once again increased. For instance, one shared service center processed the onboarding of around 200 former Credit Suisse clients in Austria. The added time and effort that this challenge presented was mastered without the deployment of addition personnel, demonstrating clearly the high degree of agility and practical problem-solving skills of the shared service teams.

In going forward, by providing its professional expertise in operational processes, Group Shared Services will continue to support the digital transformation of the LLB Group (see paragraph “New focus with ACT-26”).

Generating synergy effects

Synergy effects are created when as many processes as possible within an organisation are carried out identically. Accordingly, at the LLB Group, we are endeavouring to harmonise processes and procedures in the individual legal entities and business sectors. The successful migration of LLB Österreich to the groupwide Avaloq core banking system at the beginning of 2020 was a significant step. On the one hand, internal processes were simplified, and on the other, the clients of LLB Österreich were provided with access to all the products and services offered by the LLB Group. Since February 2021, this includes our Online and Mobile Banking programmes. As a result, our regular clients in Austria have the possibility of executing payment, stock market and foreign exchange orders themselves online.

Digitalisation of banking business

Digitalisation represents a mega-trend that is also having an enormous impact on banking business. Right from the start of the current strategy period, a groupwide project encompassing investments totalling CHF 30 million was initiated to expand the existing digital channels and services. In this manner, we are meeting changed client requirements and positioning LLB as a modern, innovative financial institute. In the year under report, we implemented more digitalisation measures to make further progress with this project.

Expansion of Online und Mobile Banking

In expanding our LLB Online and Mobile Banking, we place the highest priority on security, functionality, user-friendliness and design. We are guided by the latest technical standards in our efforts to refine and enhance these services. The expansion of the LLB Online and Mobile Banking programmes in the year under report enabled our clients to benefit from:

• New functions for clients to choose from as well as new, customisable reports having a subscription function. These provide institutional clients with more control and enable them to generate various reports for different applications.
• Newly designed online forms providing an improved overview and added convenience.
• More investment position details including information about sustainability. Thanks to a higher level of transparency, clients for whom sustainability is of major importance receive the information they want about selected investments.
• The introduction of an online financial statement for fund savings plans means that existing clients can now obtain them online.

Progress with internal digitalisation

As part of the “team@work” Group project, we are working on the extensive renewal of our digital infrastructure and the optimisation of work processes.

In this context, in 2021, “Skype for Business” was extended to include LLB (Österreich), our business locations in the Middle East and the infrastructure in our client meeting rooms. This now provides the staff of the entire Group with the latest communications technology that includes video conferencing, telephony, desktop sharing and chat functions.

As planned, during the year under report the SharePoint-based LLB intranet was introduced as the basis for the digital workplace. In parallel with the launch of this new technology, the phasing out of the IBM Notes applications and databases commenced and continued throughout 2021; it should be completed in 2022. Also in 2022, work on the development of the digital workplace will continue with the introduction of Microsoft Cloud functionalities for employment within the LLB Group.

As a reaction to dealing with the corona pandemic, in 2020, Group IT expanded the possibility of mobile working for the staff of the LLB Group within just a few weeks from under 20 per cent to almost 100 per cent by providing employees with laptops and additional hardware such as external monitors. This ensured a very good starting point for the roll out of the new WFH (working from home) concept, which is set to come into operation in 2022, provided the corona situation permits this (see chapter “Employees”).

New focus with ACT-26

In line with the introduction of the ACT-26 corporate strategy starting in the 2022 business year, there will be a new focus for the Corporate Center. The planned transformation of the bank means that the Corporate Center will assume a new key role. By 2026, the LLB Group intends to be more digitalised, more agile and scalable. Over the next five years, CHF 100 million will be invested in the corresponding group program “LLB.ONE " (see chapter  “ACT-26”). “LLB.ONE” focuses on increasing customer value. Customer interaction is to be expanded and modernized. In the future, clients will be able to decide for themselves which services they obtain from the LLB Group, when and how.

“Digital and yet personal: with us, this is not a contradiction, because even in digital interaction, customers can be met personally."

In addition, core processes are to be simplified, standardized and automated as part of the digital transformation, leading to an increase in efficiency.

This change process will be driven by the division of the Chief Digital & Operating Officer (formerly the COO), in which all the resources necessary for the digital transformation will be bundled. This will be reflected in the organisation of the division, which will be strengthened by the establishment of two new business areas: Group Digital Transformation and Group Product Management. By integrating Product Management, Product Offering can be supported even more strongly in the future with efficient, digitized processes. The Digital Transformation business area stands for the implementation of the Group program “LLB.ONE”.

The Corporate Center will continue to stand for ensuring daily operations within the LLB Group even after the introduction of the ACT-26 strategy and the associated tasks: 24/7.

Business segment result

The LLB Group reports the structural contribution from interest business, the value of interest rate hedging instruments and income from financial investments under the  Corporate Center. Operating income rose by CHF 4.9 million to CHF 63.8 million. The increase was mainly attributable to the higher structural contribution in interest business and increased earnings from financial investments. In contrast, trading income fell due to the lower valuation of interest rate hedging instruments on the reporting date. Operating expenses remained stable, amounting to CHF 78.2 million. In the previous year, the segment had benefitted from the one-time effects of the adjustment of the pension conversion rate and the release of a provision in a legal case.

But the LLB Group will not only invest in digitalisation in the coming years. In total, investments of over CHF 250 million are planned until 2026. In addition to the CHF 100 million for “LLB.ONE”, we will invest in our building infrastructure, our hardware and software as well as in strategic projects. Based on strategic considerations and requirements, these investments will not be linear but spread over the years.

Segment reporting

Additional information