HOW MUCH MONEY have you got? And how quickly could you spend all of it? If the answer to the second of those questions is: "I couldn't", then JPMorgan Private Bank wants to hear from you.
"We position ourselves at the very apex of the wealth pyramid," says JPMorgan's Chris Hancock, who liaises between the investment and private banks. "Our desired client base consists of those individuals whose wealth management problems stretch beyond their own lifetime, and so give rise to succession issues, tax planning issues and the like, because they cannot spend all their money."
Best execution The clients that JPMorgan Private Bank wants are increasingly targeted by, and using, both investment banks and private banks. The ultra wealthy have adopted the characteristics of an institution.
"The wealthiest 10 or 15 families in each European country are effectively institutions," says Jeremy Marshall, chief executive of Credit Suisse Private Banking (UK). "They want to execute their own ideas with their bank and get, for example, prime brokerage services from their bank." The banks, with their compulsive tendency to create horrific neologisms, have named these clients 'instividuals'.