Saxo Bank, the online trading and investment specialist, today marks the 20th anniversary of partnership with Portugal’s Banco Carregosa, a wealth management specialist offering namely advisory, asset management and online brokerage services, making this Saxo’s longest partnership in its institutional business.

Resource and budget constraints in IT, back office and market access lead many banks and brokerages to seek alternatives to building an online trading solution themselves. Saxo’s institutional business, Saxo Advanced Solutions (SAS), taps into Saxo’s open technology infrastructure to enable partners – from banks, brokers, asset managers and fintechs to hedge funds and financial advisors – to accelerate their digitisation journey.

In 2001, Banco Carregosa was looking for a digital solutions partner to support them in their digital transformation journey, allowing them to outsource parts of the offering to reduce costs and complexities, while redirecting efforts on providing a better client experience.

The result is Saxo’s first White Label Client partnership, which allowed Banca Carregosa to leverage Saxo’s back end technology while offering a state-of-the-art trading platform under their own brand, maintaining full customer control and confidentiality. Since then, the partnership has grown strongly, and Saxo has continued the development of its White Label client business model where today it has over 135 WLCs globally.

Francisco Oliveira Fernandes, CEO, Banco Carregosa, said, “We are delighted to celebrate this momentous occasion today, with the Saxo team in Lisbon. This 20-year partnership has been very positive, and in Saxo, we have a great collaborator and solutions provider who can help us bring a strong digital experience to the market and to our clients. We look forward to more great years ahead.”

Kim Fournais, CEO and Founder, Saxo Bank, said, “As the first partner bank we onboarded in 2001, Banco Carregosa has been a valued and treasured partner, and we are very proud to be here today to celebrate this great milestone together. This is a great example of a win-win relationship, which we always strive for with all our clients and partners. We are very honoured that 20 years later, Banco Carregosa is still using our technology and market access to service their end clients. We continue to work on the continual upgrade of our partner solutions, and we look forward to taking the partnership further with Banco Carregosa.”

The 20^th year anniversary celebration took place in Lisbon, with an event attended by the leadership teams of both Saxo and Banco Carregosa. A panel session featured Saxo’s Chief Investment Officer, Steen Jakobsen, Mário Carvalho Fernandes, Chief Investment Officer, Banco Carregosa, and Maria Cândida Rocha e Silva, Banco Carregosa, Chairlady. The discussion focused on trends in the market, where the industry is going, digitisation of investment, where both companies are going and how they see the future of investment.

Combining human touch with scalable digital solutions

In the past 20 years, the world of Fintech and banking has evolved and one of the most significant trend in the wealth management space is the shift from in-person interaction to more digital and scalable solutions.

Digitisation offers the fastest and most cost-effective way to expedite the integration process, and increasingly, more firms are tapping partnerships and FinTech solutions to future-proof their business with a modern platform-based business model. The increased scale and automation of back-end processes free up advisors to focus on investment performance, customer management and acquisition. For the firms themselves, there is a low cost of ownership, and they can keep pace with technological innovations but at lower ongoing capital and operating expenditure.”

“We understand there are many banks, brokers, asset managers, fintechs, and other institutions that have a strong desire to overcome barriers to go digital and get to scale quickly, but many are bogged down by high costs and a multitude of disconnected systems. There is a real, and ever more urgent, need in the market for these companies to partner with the right solutions provider to help them scale and gain more clients, and continue to thrive in the face of regulatory and compliance requirements,” Henrik Alsøe, Global Head of Saxo Advanced Solutions, Saxo Bank, said.

For more information, please visit https://www.home.saxo/institutional-and-partners