Making Money Work Better: A Progress Update from Group Chairman, Anthony Long
Featured in Portfolio Magazine March 2025 Edition
As we move into the spring of 2025, I am excited to be able to update you on the progress the Capital International Group has made in the last 12 months and share with you some of the exciting developments that lie ahead.
Our mission and vision statements galvanise us to constantly work to enhance our client service offerings within our three core propositions: Investment Platform, Investment Management and Banking. ‘To make money work better for our clients, our people and our communities and ‘to simply connect the financial ecosystem in one place, to empower you’ are powerful statements of intent. They challenge our people to drive innovation and client-centric change through the business, and to dedicate time to supporting our communities.
For our clients, we have made numerous significant improvements to our product offering, whether that’s through the high-quality, client-centric care we have established across our banking services, or the 100+ new releases made to enhance online access for our investment clients. We asked our clients what they valued most, we listened to their feedback and we set about delivering improvements to our service.
If you have driven through Douglas recently, you will have noticed the refurbishment work taking place at our offices on Circular Road. Across the four floors of our headquarters, we are investing over £2.0mil to expand and upgrade our client and office facilities to create a fantastic new working environment. Based on feedback gathered from across our teams and the results of our employee engagement surveys, we have implemented a number of changes, including updating our core benefits package and introducing industry standard salary benchmarking.
In our communities, we continue to invest in our Conscious Capital commitments, dedicating both financial and human resources to good causes and reducing our environmental footprint. These actions have enabled us to achieve an 80+% alignment to the WEF common metrics to sustainable value creation across the four pillars of people, planet, prosperity and governance. All of our people are encouraged to take two volunteering days a year to support a local charity of their choosing and through this work we have provided continued support to the Isle of Man Woodland Trust, the Energy & Sustainability Centre, Manx Wildlife Trust, Hospice Isle of Man, numerous Manx national sporting endeavours, as well as to Souper Troopers and Resthaven in South Africa.
Once again, we funded 12 members of our team to travel to Tanzania and spend a week at the Huruma Orphanage. Their individual fundraising efforts have continued to support the orphanage in the invaluable work they do for the children there, and this is part of our wider ambition to assist the orphanage in building a sustainable future. Collectively we invested over £70,000 in these projects last year and we have committed over £100,000 of investment into these and other Conscious Capital projects in the year ahead, all of which will be delivered through our newly created Conscious Capital Charitable Foundation.
Turning back to our core business, we plan to release a new mobile app, enabling our banking clients to better manage their accounts on-the-go. This exciting development will be hugely beneficial for payment and foreign exchange authorisations, particularly for our multi-jurisdictional corporate clients. Additionally, we will be releasing a new Bulk Payments feature that will enable clients to import and process multiple transactions, considerably streamlining their administrative payment processes.
Client centricity has always been a core pillar of our service delivery and we will continue with our Voice of the Client work to ensure that this informs our product development program. In the Investment Platform business, this will not only result in further incremental improvements to our Platform interface, but also in the release of new digital onboarding and self-service portals. These significant developments will allow our clients to input and update their details digitally, upload documents, save progress on their applications, see exactly what is missing from their submissions, and reduce the back and forth with our onboarding and client service teams.
2024 also saw a major expansion of our investment management business through our acquisition of Martello Asset Management Limited in Jersey. In the year ahead we will expand our Jersey operation and integrate our investment management professionals across both jurisdictions.
Another core focus for the year ahead is to bring closer alignment our client services across the Group. We are investing in a more unified brand, rather than being known as a provider of three distinctly different service offerings. I am extremely proud of the reputation that we have built in each of these business areas, but I also recognise that the sum of the parts is greater than each standing alone. Being part of a strong and well diversified financial services group creates resilience and strength that enables us to focus in on the delivery of outstanding client service, as expertise, resources and infrastructural resilience can be shared to the benefit of all.
With this in mind, in future the Capital International Group will simply become known as ‘Capital International’ and we will further align our three core businesses with one shared mission and vision. We are introducing a subtle change to our logo by removing the word ‘Group’ and later this year we will also be changing our website URL to support our wider international focus as we continue to grow.
The year ahead is going to be another exciting period of growth for Capital International and I look forward seeing our progress develop in the months ahead. If you have any feedback that you would like to share with us or if you would like to join us on our journey into the future, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Disclaimer: The views, thoughts and opinions expressed within this article are those of the author, and not those of any company within the Capital International Group (CIG) and as such are neither given nor endorsed by CIG. Information in this article does not constitute investment advice or an offer or an invitation by or on behalf of any company within the Capital International Group of companies to buy or sell any product or security or to make a bank deposit. Any reference to past performance is not necessarily a guide to the future. The value of investments may go down as well as up and may be adversely affected by currency fluctuations. CIG, its clients and officers may have a position in, or engage in transactions in any of the investments mentioned. Opinions constitute views as at the date of publication and are subject to change.
Regulated investment and banking activities are undertaken by Capital International Group Limited's licensed member companies. Capital International Limited, Capital Financial Markets Limited, and Capital International Bank Limited, are licensed by the Isle of Man Financial Services Authority. Capital International Limited is a member of the London Stock Exchange. Capital International Bank Limited is a wholly owned subsidiary of Capital International Group Limited (www.capital-iom.com), a privately owned financial services group based in the Isle of Man and operates as a non-retail, restricted deposit taker under a Class 1 (2) licence. Deposits are not covered by the Isle of Man Depositors’ Compensation Scheme and terms and conditions apply. Capital International Bank is the trading name of Capital International Bank Limited. Capital International Bank Limited is also licensed by the South African Reserve Bank Prudential Authority to conduct the business of a Representative Office in South Africa.
CILSA Investments (Pty) Ltd (FSP No. 44894) trading as Capital International SA, is licensed by the Financial Sector Conduct Authority in South Africa.
