Bank Frick: strategic reorganisation of the Management Board
Bank Frick is restructuring its Management Board. The organisational structure is being adapted to the needs of a tech-savvy bank for intermediaries. Michael Dolzer will become a Management Board member and COO on 1 May 2019. To date, Dolzer has been Head of Business Technologies and Innovation Management. CCO Hubert Büchel has decided to take on a new position outside the Bank. CEO Edi Wögerer will assume responsibility for the new Customer Relations division.
Michael Dolzer, Head of Business Technologies and Innovation Management and from 1 May 2019 Chief Operations Officer (COO) at Bank Frick: "One of the most important things is to understand customers’ needs and take them seriously."
Balzers (LI) – The Board of Directors of Bank Frick has appointed Michael Dolzer as a member of the Management Board. To date, Dolzer has been responsible for the Business Technologies and Innovation Management department. As Chief Operations Officer (COO), he will head up the newly created division of the same name from 1 May 2019.
Michael Dolzer (52) came from another financial institution to Bank Frick in 2012, where he took over as Head of the IT department. “At the time, IT was primarily a support department whose job was to keep business operations up and running. Today, technology has taken centre stage in the Bank’s activities, influencing all business models and the client experience. For that reason, the Board of Directors already decided in 2018 to make digital leadership skills a key part of the Management Board. With his extensive leadership experience, broad specialist knowledge and client-focused mindset, Michael Dolzer is the perfect man for the job,” says Chairman of the Board of Directors Mario Frick of the appointment.
“Taking client needs seriously”
Unusually, Dolzer began his professional career with initial training in the hotel industry: “One of the most important things you learn in the tourism industry is to understand customers’ needs and take them seriously. I would like to help to establish this mindset even more firmly within the Bank – across all departments.”
Management Board member and Chief Client Officer (CCO) Hubert Büchel has decided to take on a new position outside the Bank. “We greatly regret the fact that Hubert Büchel will be leaving us,” says Chairman of the Board of Directors Mario Frick, “and we would like to thank him warmly for his contribution to our Bank’s ongoing development in recent years.”
“I have had the privilege of spending nine wonderful and successful years together with my fantastic colleagues at Bank Frick,” says Hubert Büchel. “Despite this, I began to feel the need a while ago to get to know a new company. I am now looking forward to more exciting years at at a different financial institution.”
In future, the Management Board of Bank Frick will be made up of Edi Wögerer (CEO), Melanie Gstöhl (CFO) and Michael Dolzer (COO).
Client departments report to the CEO
With the departure of Hubert Büchel, CEO Edi Wögerer will take charge of the client-facing departments in the Customer Relations division, which previously went by the name of Private and Institutional Clients. “The new names also underline the importance of customer relations – both with new and existing clients,” explains Bank Frick CEO Edi Wögerer.
As a result, the Blockchain, Funds and Capital Market Solutions and Private Clients and External Asset Managers departments will report to the CEO in future. The new E-Commerce and Distribution departments will also be part of the Customer Relations division.
“Over the last two to three years, we have developed a great many ideas and tried out a variety of new things, some successful and some less so – this is in our entrepreneurial DNA. My job now is to ensure that our innovations reach the clients,” Edi Wögerer explains. In this context, he emphasises the central statement of Bank Frick’s mission: to make it easier for financial intermediaries to do business and enable them “to differentiate themselves from their competitors with the help of our services.”
About Bank Frick
Bank Frick is a family-run Liechtenstein bank with headquarters in Balzers. It was founded in 1998 by Kuno Frick Sr (1938–2017), with the majority now controlled by the Kuno Frick Family Foundation. Minority shareholder Net 1 UEPS Technologies, Inc. (Net1), holds 35 per cent of Bank Frick’s share capital. Net1 is a financial technology company listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange in New York.
Bank Frick focuses on providing products and services for financial intermediaries such as fiduciaries, asset managers, payment service providers and fintechs.
One of Bank Frick’s unique selling points is its high level of expertise in the regulated blockchain banking sector. The Bank supports Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs), provides custody of crypto assets and dealing services in leading cryptocurrencies for Bank Frick clients, and makes crypto assets bankable.
Bank Frick develops tailor-made funds for intermediaries and acts as a custodian bank.
It is the only bank in Liechtenstein with acquiring licences from Visa and MasterCard.
Bank Frick established subsidiaries in 2019 to operate independently on the market with new services: Distributed Ventures AG, an incubator and accelerator to promote and finance fintech and blockchain start-ups, as well as The DLT Markets AG, which provides institutional investors with professional access to digital assets.
Bank Frick employs more than 120 members of staff and operates a branch in London, UK.
Media contact
Bank Frick & Co. AG
Sigvard Wohlwend, Head of Corporate and Market Communications
T +423 388 21 46
sigvard.wohlwend [at] bankfrick.li (sigvard[dot]wohlwend[at]bankfrick[dot]li)
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