Swiss robo adviser True Wealth has seen a massive increase in business over recent months. Still, the fintech also had to deal with the departure of key personnel.

Digital wealth manager True Wealth is a privately held firm and therefore not required to make public its key figures. Now and then though it provides an insight on how things are going.

As was the case again these days. The startup, which was launched by Felix Niederer and Oliver Herren in 2013, announced that it had reached the important threshold of 5,000 clients and was managing 280 million Swiss francs ($294 million). In September 2019, the figure had been 200 million, so the increase is significant.

Digital Onboarding

The boost is not only a consequence of the corona-crisis though. «We too have seen a corona-effect, with growth almost doubling over the past months. But we have been growing steadily and at a satisfactory degree in January and over the past year too,» said Niederer in an interview with finews.com.

The introduction of new technology has helped along this process, he said. «We have fully digitalized the onboarding process. It is possible to open an account with us with a mobile phone and a Swiss number in less than ten minutes.»

Key Staff at Corporate Clients Unit Left

The company has had some success with corporate clients in the past, with Regiobank Solothurn as an example. But the company now mainly aims for the business with its own, directly acquired clients, said Niederer.

Which wasn’t due to departures of key personnel, he said. Since May past, several employees of the corporate clients business – including its boss, Christoph Erb – left and joined a new joint venture formed by Synpulse and Profect, according to information obtained by finews.com.

Past Partnership Agreements

True Wealth has had several partnership agreements with companies in the past. Basellandschaftliche Kantonalbank for instance had a stake in the robo adviser and acted as its depository bank, offering the service to its clients. Another was Austria’s Erste-Gruppe, which even introduced the True Wealth service to its banking app called George.