Need for premium service drives FPI's banking switch

A Hong Kong bank's decision to establish a financial services department is hardly earth-shattering news in this day and age. Occasionally, however, the situation is reversed, as when a financial services organisation takes the plunge and sets up a bank.

This is precisely the case with financial services company Financial Partners International (FPI), which is metamorphosing into Financial Partners Bank - otherwise known as FP Bank.

While FPI already operates private client services across much of Asia-Pacific, including Vanuatu, and the Isle of Man, it will add banking, insurance and asset management to the blend and expand to London, Singapore and Saudi Arabia in 2007-8.

According to Jason Blick, FPI's chief executive, the move from independent financial organisation to bank has primarily been driven by the need to offer clients a premium level of service.

'[The move was motivated by] the realisation that no other bank was offering our clients, private or corporate, the level of highly personalised service and [the] transparency and simplicity of execution they wanted,' Mr Blick said.

The long-term goal? 'To be the world's dominant offshore bank,' he said.

As a result, this month FPI is to launch its account services and lending facilities for retail banking.