Return to UBS tops private banking poll
C Hoare and Co
Client relationship management at C. Hoare & Co, the oldest private bank in the UK, really is different from its competitors, which have again recognized it as the top in the field in the UK. Clients of the bank are like members of an exclusive club. Would-be clients need recommendations from at least two existing ones before the bank will consider taking them on. Moreover, the bank regularly declines to serve wealthy individuals who are not what they consider "gentlemen", because insufficiently respectable individuals might embarrass clients through association.
Continuously owned and run by the Hoare family for 11 generations, many of Hoare and Co's client relationships go back just as far. Ultra-conservative, the bank has a reputation for trust and stability that's unrivalled.
"We consciously try to keep things very simple," says Alexander Hoare, managing partner at C Hoare & Co (pictured). "We simply try to treat customers as we wish to be treated. We enjoy high levels of trust from our customers and we earn that trust by doing the little things right over and over again."