6 Acquisition International - Worldwide Finance Awards 2022 May22370 Best Asset & Investment Management Firm - Belgium oasting 12 million clients across Belgium, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, and Bulgaria, KBC is a popular and highly trustworthy banking and insurance group. Within this group stands the group’s investment arm, KBC Asset Management NV, which works with retail and institutional clients, developing products for intra-group distribution and providing investment fund sales and advisory support. Guided by the mantra, ‘Everyone invested all the time,’ KBC Asset Management NV is on a mission to enable people from all walks of life to benefit from capital markets. Indeed, it endeavours to be ‘more than a bank,’ by protecting its clients’ dreams and helping to make them a reality. At the end of 2021, KBC Asset Management NV reported €236bn in AUM. Such numbers have been cultivated, amongst other initiatives, through simplifying the retail investing process by B KBC Asset Management NV is an industry leader, and it incredibly clear as to how it has built its way up to this position. Through constantly remaining ahead of its competition, the company possesses the most trustworthy and advanced asset and investment management solutions, effectively guaranteeing the safety of its clients’ assets. Therefore, over the next year, KBC Asset Management NV hopes to continue down this route of innovation. removing the roadblocks, lowering threshold requirements, and focusing on digitalisation. The firm is, quite simply, an innovator. As such, across Belgium, KBC Asset Management NV boasts a strong position in the market, with 293 employees operating out of the Brussels-based office. Of course, within an industry that is currently undergoing numerous challenges, this is an enormous benefit. The industry is transforming, heading towards a new era of digitisation, and as a result many businesses are struggling to keep up. Moreover, in a shift that was largely accelerated by the pandemic, Digitization and FinTech has enhanced competitiveness in the financial sector. This, alongside the push towards responsible investing, has led to an industry-wide quest to remain on the cutting edge of asset and investment management. KBC Asset Management NV further bolsters its position in the market through constantly striving for innovation. It wants to be the focal point for the industry and stay one step ahead of its competition. It is with this in mind that the company is embracing AI, which helps it to change the way that it interacts with its clients throughout all sectors. This evolution has come in the form of KATE, the virtual assistant at KBC, which helps clients to navigate investment options on digital channels, where over half of KBC investment plans are now sold. On top of this, the firm recently launched its own smart advisory engine based on AI, which screens portfolios held by Private & Wealthy clients. It performs a detailed analysis of each portfolio based on a number of underlying risk and return factors and proactively formulates personalised advice. Such technologies have been KBC Asset Management NV’s main priority over the past year, and as a result, it has taken many steps to increase its position in the market. However, there is a greater contributor – its team. The rapidly changing industry calls for dynamic and creative employees who can respond to it smoothly. It also calls for new ways of working. In response to this, KBC Asset Management NV has implemented a selection of techniques that will enable it to respond to a fast-changing environment, anticipate the needs of its employees, and attract innovative and agile people. The company has, as a result, brought about an internal culture that thrives within a busy office space. Its team operates through the PEARL+ acronym – this is a framework that dictates how both the company and its team should conduct business to ensure efficacy. In full, the acronym stands for Performance, Empowerment, Accountability, Responsiveness, and Local Embeddedness, with
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