Retail & Corporate Banking

Information checkedInformation unaudited Information geprüft Information ungeprüft Retail & Corporate Banking 

“Closeness to clients is our key priority”. In line with this principle, LLB and Bank Linth have successfully positioned themselves as a universal bank in Liechtenstein and eastern Switzerland. In interacting with clients, tradition is just as important as innovation.

Regionally anchored

Founded 160 years ago, Liechtensteinische Landesbank is the longest established financial institute in Liechtenstein. Its very large share of the market in private and corporate client business confirms that the Landesbank is firmly anchored in the region and makes a major contribution to the economy of the Principality. It is the only bank in Liechtenstein with several branches and an extensive network of cash machines. Many clients are also shareholders of the bank (see chapter “Economic value creation”). Bank Linth (founded in 1848) also has a rich tradition and is well known for its proximity to clients and its strong regional ties. The client advisers at both banks live in their market regions and therefore have a profound knowledge of  their client`s needs (see chapter “Employees”).

The private and corporate client business at the Liechtensteinische Landesbank and at its subsidiary Bank Linth comprises the deposits and financing business in the domestic markets of Liechtenstein and Switzerland. In addition, there are very diverse relationships with cross-border clients from the Austrian province of Vorarlberg.

As in the previous year, the 2021 business year was largely dominated by the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. So again in the year under report, we strove to make our contribution to dealing with the crisis by continuing to be a reliable partner for our clients. We tried to support them respectfully, transparently and by providing practical solutions. The broad range of positive feedback we received from them testified to the fact that we again proved to them that we are trustworthy partners for our corporate clients.

Premium partner of the Chamber of Commerce

LLB is well networked with the local business community. This can also be seen in our effective partnership with the Liechtenstein Chamber of Commerce, which we have extended again at the end of 2021 for a further three years. Moreover, we are constantly expanding this collaboration. Since the year under report, the Head of the LLB Private and Corporate Business Area, Eduard Zorc, has represented LLB at the Chamber of Commerce’s Conference of Senior Executives. We are, therefore, right at the source of new developments and challenges within the Liechtenstein business community.

We offer the members of the Chamber of Commerce various tried and tested services such as preferential conditions for forex transactions and favoured status for our “SME-Box” basic product. Our joint events and free-of-charge training possibilities are very popular.

The launching of the LLB SME Award is also a testimony to our close ties with the Liechtenstein business community. This will be presented for the second time in 2022.

Spotlight on client needs

As part of the StepUp2020 strategy, the LLB Group set itself the goal of investing more time in the individual care of its clients and enhancing the quality of the advice it provides to them. In 2021, therefore, we paid great attention to the behavioural economic aspects of distribution and marketing issues as well as in product design. In collaboration with an external partner, we field tested various behavioural economic concepts in a pilot project. In response to the good results achieved, we shall explore this concept in distribution, and our approach to clients in greater detail.

Successful lending and mortgage business

Lending business is an important area of business for the LLB Group. In this business, we pursue a prudent credit policy, which focuses on the borrower’s creditworthiness and ability to repay a loan (see chapter “Finance and risk management”). In Liechtenstein, LLB is the market leader in mortgage lending business with a market share of 50 per cent. As the largest regional bank in eastern Switzerland, Bank Linth is also an important player in this segment.

Payments, savings and deposits

In Liechtenstein LLB is the clear market leader in payment services and account management. From birth almost every resident has an account at the Landesbank. Our “LLB Combi / Bank Linth Combi” package enables private clients to design their own individual banking relationship themselves. An interactive online configurator helps our clients to put together a service package that fits their requirements, and also reveals the cost of every module to provide full transparency. The specific investment advice and asset management for clients having available assets of up to CHF 0.5 million are also components of private and corporate client business. Many clients prefer investment fund saving and investment plans to conventional savings accounts. Our unique “LLB Compass” offers a 360-degree spectrum of advisory services, which provides solutions for every phase of life and stage of the business cycle, from birth to succession and from the founding of a business to the transfer to the next generation. At LLB and Bank Linth, corporate clients receive various attractive basic products in our “SME box” with transparent services and conditions.

Reliable partners for our corporate clients

In recent years, LLB and Bank Linth have established themselves as reliable partners for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). With a market share of over 70 per cent, LLB is the market leader in Liechtenstein. Bank Linth is one of the largest service providers in eastern Switzerland.

In addition to attractive basic product packages, LLB and Bank Linth offer corporate clients a broad and comprehensive range of services from the setting up of a business to the transfer of the company to the next generation.

Because corporate client business is particularly important for the LLB Group we expanded our staff of client advisers in the year under report. We were able to recruit a team of experienced corporate client advisers in Liechtenstein, who commenced working with us in autumn 2021.

Our close ties with SME clients were demonstrated especially during the corona crisis. During the pandemic, both LLB and Bank Linth provided companies, which had run into financial difficulties, with Covid-19 bridging loans in a simple and unbureaucratic manner. In the year under report no further liquidity support was provided. Nevertheless, we continued to maintain close contacts with our corporate clients. If, in spite of their sustainable business model, companies still experienced challenging liquidity situations, we supported them by deferring interest and amortisation payments. Each individual case was evaluated according to LLB’s defined basic criteria (see chapter “Financial and risk management”).

Individual pension provisioning solutions

We are the only bank in Liechtenstein to offer SMEs collective pension fund solutions through the LLB Pension Fund Foundation. Thanks to its solid financial base, the foundation enjoys ever increasing popularity. At the end of 2021, the foundation administered assets of CHF 1.27 billion (2020: CHF 1.18 billion). Accordingly, LLB Pension Fund Foundation administers one of the largest pension fund assets in Liechtenstein making it one of the main pillars of the domestic pension fund market. At the end of 2021, it encompassed 760 affiliated companies (2020: 773) having a total of 7'866 actively insured persons (2020: 7'238). The coverage ratio stood at over 110.1 per cent (2020: 107.2 %). The Foundation has an extremely solid client structure with a ratio of 12 actively insured persons for every one pensioner.

The LLB Pension Fund Foundation is a member of the supervisory board of the Liechtenstein Pension Fund Association, enabling it to actively consult and shape the regulatory framework for the domestic market.

Multiple channels enhance closeness to clients

The corona pandemic has again accelerated the use of digital channels. Even in the years prior to the pandemic, we noted that in private and corporate client business, more and more of our clients were utilising e-channels whereas over-the-counter business was declining. In 2021, more than 2.7 million transactions (2020: 2.7 million) were carried out via our online and mobile banking channels. Card transactions using LLB cards also increased sharply from 3.3 million in the previous year to 3.5 million.

Even if over-the-counter business is declining, this does not mean that our bank branches have become superfluous. On the contrary, the scope and intensity of advisory discussion and meetings have increased. Therefore, we are investing not just in technology but also in the advanced training of our bank branch teams. Our branch counter staff are becoming client advisers, who also complete the certification programme according to the standards of the Swiss Association for Quality (SAQ) (see chapter “Employees”).

E-Channels

We are one of the few banks to have structured our entire digital offering as a one-stop shop. Designed in accordance with the latest security and technological standards, our digital offering is constantly expanding. In 2021, our Online and Mobile Banking programmes were further enlarged. Users therefore benefitted from new functions and improved user-friendliness (see chapter “Corporate Center”). Since 2021, the following features are additionally available to you:

• Online fund saving plan: Clients can now sign up to and manage investment fund savings plans in our online banking programme independently. Currently, clients can select from round 60 investment funds to add to their fund saving plan. Client advisers can be contacted or can provide support with questions or for information purposes at any time via the system.
• Online extension of fixed-term mortgages: Mortgage clients can now simply extend existing fixed-term mortgages using LLB Online Banking for periods of up to ten years. LLB is the first bank in Liechtenstein to provide this mortgage option online.

Digitalisation of payment systems

By introducing various new digital offers, we are making the payment and issuing of invoices more efficient, simple and clear:

• LiPay: In contrast to other established instant payment systems in Switzerland and Liechtenstein, our own contactless payment app uses direct “account-to-account” payments, accelerated by instant push messages.
• QR billing: This solution represents a further step towards the automation of payment processes. It simplifies the issuing and payment of invoices for our clients and, following a transition period, it will replace the orange and red payment slips in autumn 2022. Liechtensteinische Landesbank will actively support the changeover process by providing specific offers. However, it has to be said that, so far, clients appear hesitant to make the change.
• eBill: This service makes it easier and faster for our clients to receive, check and release invoices for payment via LLB’s Online Banking. Thanks to electronic and paperless processing, costs can be saved and a contribution can be made to sustainably protecting the environment.
• LLB Connect: For companies having a very large number of payment orders we offer an attractive and convenient solution in the form of LLB Connect. This interface enables companies to submit payment, stock market and foreign exchange orders via the usual software environment quickly, securely and efficiently to LLB. The accounting system can be reconciled automatically with accounts receivable and accounts payable.
• EBICS: We also offer our corporate clients the Electronic Banking Internet Communication Standard.EBICS has become established in various SEPA (Single Euro Payment Area) countries as a multi-bank client /bank communications standard that enables payment transfers to be executed in an encrypted and secure form via the internet.

The LLB Group is investing a total of CHF 30 million during the current strategy period in the continual development of our digital channels (see chapter “Corporate Center”). The new ACT-26 corporate strategy envisages a further CHF 100 million for the Group’s digital transformation (see chapter “ACT-26”).

Closeness to clients in modern bank branches

The trend in the usage of bank branches has changed fundamentally in recent years away from traditional over-the-counter transactions and towards the demand for more personal advisory services. During the corona pandemic this trend continued to accelerate.

We already began, therefore, to redesign our bank branches in line with a new concept several years ago. At the core of the concept are three imperatives, i.e. service, functionality and client experience. The atmosphere and ambience of our modernised branches should appeal to all our client’s senses and encourage them to feel comfortable and at ease. Our unique “Bankorama” experience makes LLB banking products more simple, clear and interactive. Both our bank branches in Balzers and Eschen have already been remodelled according to this concept. Finally, the remodelling of our headquarters in Vaduz should be successfully completed in spring 2022.

“We are focusing even more sharply on the changed needs and requirements of our clients. In future, as part of our omni-channel strategy, we shall also be able to provide our clients at the bank’s headquarters with an inspiring experience”, stressed Urs Müller, Head of the Private and Corporate Clients Division of the LLB Group.

Private banking and institutional clients will also benefit from the redesigning of the bank`s headquarters.

On its way to becoming the “bank of the future”, Bank Linth opened its first redesigned branches in 2015. In the meantime, all seventeen branches have been modernised according to the new concept. In line with changed client needs, we are now focusing on delivering advisory services. Thanks to mobile work places and adjustments to infrastructure, all Bank Linth branches can offer clients the choice of flexible appointment planning in future. Less-in-demand services will no longer be offered at all bank branches in future.

Highly efficient and service-oriented advisory centres

As the interface between online and offline services, our two advisory services centres at LLB and Bank are the first points of contact for around 98’000 clients. They offer a comprehensive service for all banking transactions and represent the first level of support for questions in relation to our digital channels. In 2021, our two extremely efficient teams answered 236'000 telephone calls, responded to around 43’000 e-mails and 17’100 bank messages. They also dealt with 221'000 enquiries and questions.

In recent years more and more demands have been made on our advisory centres, caused largely by the plethora of different regulatory requirements applying to our clients from around eighty countries.

ACT-26 puts clients at the forefront

Clients will also be at the centre of our activities in realising our new ACT-26 corporate strategy. In future, there will be just two, instead of three, market divisions. As an essential one of these, the Private and Corporate Clients Division will play an important role. It specialises in taking care of locally oriented private banking clients (in Liechtenstein, Switzerland and Germany), as well as corporate and private clients in Liechtenstein and Switzerland. The goal is to become the market leader in Liechtenstein and the region.

In essence, the Private Banking segment is to be further strengthened in the domestic markets and, working from out of Liechtenstein, the markets in Germany and Italy are to be further expanded. In Germany, especially, there is increasing interest in establishing a banking relationship in Liechtenstein.

A new uniform management level will be created for the corporate client business of LLB and Bank Linth. This will enable sales and marketing efforts in Switzerland and Liechtenstein to be intensified. Another priority will be given to the comprehensive, groupwide standardisation and automation of credit processes. A first milestone has been set with the “Credit for Future” Group project.

Even greater importance will be attached to the advisory centres in future. Accordingly, they will be reorganised and their infrastructure will be modernised. In going forward, the experiences provided to clients, and no longer classical product sales activities, are to be the focus of the strategic direction of the Private and Corporate Client Division. For this purpose digitalised services will also be expanded (see chapter “ACT-26”).

Business segment result

Interest differential business, which comprises the largest proportion of earnings in the Retail and Corporate Clients Division, posted a stable development and, at CHF 91.7 million, remained at the same level as in the previous year – in spite of persisting pressure on margins. In contrast to the previous year, provisions for expected credit losses were written back in 2021. Fee and commission income was up by a pleasing 9.0 per cent in comparison with 2020. In total, operating income rose by over 10 per cent year on year. The segment profit before tax, at CHF 59.0 million, was 24.3 per cent above the previous year’s level.
The business volume expanded by 2.6 per cent to CHF 21.3 billion. The increase was attributable to net new money inflows of CHF 491 million and higher mortgage loans. The net new money inflows and the growth in lending activities were achieved in the domestic markets of Switzerland and Liechtenstein.

Segment reporting

Performance figures

Additional information