Lean management

The LLB Group believes that the key to success lies both in improvements through innovation and in the continual development of the company. In line with the StepUp2020 strategy, the Group COO Division is firmly establishing a lean management culture at the LLB Group. For this purpose five specialists support our teams.

Progress achieved in increasing efficiency, optimising IT systems and simplifying structures supports growth and profitability. Our lean initiatives mean that the demands made on our employees are changing; solution-focused and client-centric thinking and action are becoming more and more important.

Operational excellence

The new Operational Excellence Department successfully carried its first lean project in 2017. Its goal is to establish a permanent culture of ongoing improvement and refinement at the company. In our three market divisions we want to gain more time for our clients and therefore for enhancing the quality of advisory services.

Lean management in the market divisions

In all three market divisions our clients benefit from 20-percent shorter throughput times when opening an account while continuing to enjoy the same high quality processes.

The same applies to lending processes. In standard mortgage lending business, in particular, we have reduced the average throughput times by 30 percent and increased the process quality by around 30 percent.

In the Retail & Corporate Banking Division we have carried out a lean transformation of the Eschen bank branch.

The Private Banking Division completed its first lean transformation wave in August 2017. The teams in Liechtenstein, Switzerland and Germany / Austria have achieved improvements in areas relating to clients, productivity and employees. In addition, they have selected further themes to continually reconfigure their working environment according to lean principles. For our clients this results in the advantages of high-quality, fast services.

In 2018, our goal continues to be to gain more time for our clients. In the Institutional Clients Division the objective is to strengthen client relationships and establish closer proximity to clients. In the Retail & Corporate Banking Division a lean transformation of the Customer Service Center and the Financing Departments is planned. Furthermore, projects to improve the quality and efficiency of work processes at key interfaces in the CFO and COO Divisions are being drawn up. These measures safeguard and strengthen the LLB Group’s competitiveness.

High level of automation

Since introducing the Avaloq Banking Suite software throughout the Group in 2011, the LLB Group has continually improved its processing quality and productivity. To facilitate continuing standardisation and automation, self-learning IT systems have in the meantime been installed in the service centres.

In 2017, in comparison with the appropriate benchmarks (CC sourcing of the University of St. Gallen), we attained very high STP rates (the percentage of transactions, which from start to finish are processed fully automatically).

Of all payment orders processed, 94 percent were submitted electronically and the STP rate stood at 99 percent. Over 99 percent of stock market statements were processed automatically and the STP rate with capital market transactions was almost 80 percent. The high scalability in volume-intensive process creates the essentials for the LLB Group to efficiently process large transaction volumes with the existing infrastructure and thus to further increase productivity.

Shared Service Center

As the backbone of the LLB Group, the Corporate Center makes a significant contribution to helping the company adapt to fiercer competition. This includes bundling the competences in the Shared Service Center at LLB’s headquarters in Vaduz. The services concerned are payment transfers, trading and securities administration, the central client register of LLB and Bank Linth, as well as the payment systems of LLB (Österreich) AG. The continuing increase in the level of automation improves efficiency while keeping costs low. Starting in 2019, the Shared Service Center in Liechtenstein will also handle the transaction processes of our bank in Vienna.

Investments in LLB Austria’s IT infrastructure

As one of the first financial institutes in Austria, our subsidiary bank in Vienna will utilise the Avaloq Banking Suite core software in future. The changeover will take place within the scope of a cooperative project between the LLB Group and the LGT Group. The introduction of this core banking software solution in 2019 will boost our growth in Austria and in the strategic growth markets of Central and Eastern Europe.

The clients of LLB (Österreich) AG will then be able to benefit from all the products and services of the LLB Group such as the “LLB Invest” investment advisory and asset management application. Moreover, the expansion of the core banking software system to include new online and mobile client applications will mean that all the digitalisation initiatives planned by the LLB Group up to 2020 will be available.