UK fintechs attracted more investment than all European rivals combined in a tough funding market last year, but a broken IPO market leaves them with nowhere to go.

Rumours that FAB is in exploratory talks with a Turkish lender, together with hopes for a big-ticket IPO, point to optimism despite the dire outlook on inflation.

The EU’s Instant Payments Regulation may have fired the starting gun on real-time payments in Europe, but many banks remain stuck in the blocks.

Isbank’s chief executive Hakan Aran sees embedded finance and an innovative approach to bank branches as the future as the Turkish bank looks to rebuild on a better market environment for its 100-year anniversary.

The good news is that bank executives don’t see big loan losses ahead; the bad news is that they lack the confidence and vision to invest in the business.

The Greek bailout fund’s exit from Piraeus Bank last month was the country’s biggest post-crisis privatization. The bank’s chief executive, Christos Megalou, tells Euromoney that this is more than a capital-return story. It’s also about growth: in the economy, in wealth and asset management, and, thanks to neobank Snappi, internationally.

After a decade of restructuring, EFG International ramped up hiring last year – above all from Credit Suisse. Chief executive Giorgio Pradelli talks about the firm’s scope to lead a wave of Swiss-bank consolidation, while doubling down on new wealth from the Middle East and Asia.

Credit Suisse’s domestic bank was arguably the failed group’s best and strongest division. One year after the rescue, UBS is not the only one trying to feast on its domestic wealth-management and corporate-banking leftovers. Other Swiss and international players also hope to benefit from the longer-term fallout in Switzerland. Will the rush to pick up the remnants of the fallen champion pay off?

The decision by the US SEC to drop mandatory Scope 3 reporting weakens global emissions reporting standards. However, many corporate issuers are already using Scope 3 performance targets on sustainability-linked transactions for non-regulatory reasons. Are the debt and equities markets leading companies onto ESG ground upon which regulators fear to tread?

Norwegian wealth manager Formue has been growing revenues and assets since opening in 2000. It has done this by financially educating people who never gave much thought to wealth planning and by getting people to like it.

Few manage to do discretionary portfolio management better than Julius Baer today. The largest pure-play private bank by assets under management has been busy during its latest strategic cycle, which runs for three years through 2025.

Caixabank Private Banking wins the award for best domestic private bank in Spain this year having demonstrated strong performance and launched important enhancements in many sectors.

BNP Paribas Wealth Management operates across 17 countries, serving a client base of entrepreneurs, family offices and high net-worth individuals.

LGT Private Banking is the private bank of the Princely House of Liechtenstein. Founded in 1920, it operates according to the same values and convictions that have guided the building and managing of its owner’s family assets for almost 900 years, across 26 generations: thinking and acting entrepreneurially; a long-term focus; openness to new developments and technologies; and a disciplined approach to risk and resources.

Deutsche Bank Private Bank is building a focus on the most challenging customer segment of all: ultra-high net-worth individuals and family offices.

The banks in each market that have excelled across a range of core private banking activities during the past 12 months.

BNP Paribas Wealth Management has been named Western Europe's best private bank for sustainability this year. One of the many factors supporting this decision is the banks’ ability to embed sustainability into all its product and services by prioritising portfolio assessment and the upskilling of its bankers.

In its home market, Deutsche Bank has expanded its leadership with high net-worth (HNW) customers, as well as with the ultra-high net-worth (UHNW) clients that are becoming a core focus in Germany, Europe and cross the globe.

Societe Generale Private Banking, the wealth-management arm of Societe Generale, is a worldwide private bank with a strong European base. It had €140 billion of assets under management at the end of September 2023.

BNP Paribas Wealth Management shows “a strong dedication to enhancing the client experience through digital means, innovation and research”, according to the judging panel for this year’s private banking awards.

BNP Paribas Wealth Management’s philanthropy solutions have been a noteworthy part of its wider positive impact offering since 2008. The firm aims to provide clients, free of charge, with proposals that fit each step of their philanthropic journey.

The wealth-management divisions of national-champion universal banks have won most of the regional private banking awards in Western Europe. But Lombard Odier offers a powerful reminder of the capabilities of a pure-play private bank, owned by its managing partners who follow a business model solely focused on managing their clients’ assets.

BNP Paribas has been relentlessly fine-tuning its secondary equities business in Europe for more than a decade. While the primary focus has been on reaching an affordable offering for institutional investor customers of its markets business, clients of the wealth-management business are now also benefiting.

Serving the next generation of wealthy individuals and family members is at the heart of everything Julius Baer does. The Swiss pure-play wealth manager is cognisant of the vast amount of wealth in the process of being handed from one set of family hands to the next; it sees this segment as a key vehicle for it to, in its words, “live out [its] purpose” and “create value beyond wealth”.

JPMorgan has been making a strong push in private banking in Europe, the Middle East and Africa over the past three years, substantially growing its numbers of advisers and clients, opening offices from Athens and Brussels to Copenhagen and Manchester, while taking advantage of its big technology budget to invest in new capabilities.

DNB Private Banking has been named this year’s best bank for family-office services in the Nordics and Baltics.

The award for the best international private bank in the Nordics and Baltics goes to JPMorgan Private Bank this year. Among other things, the US lender impressed the judging panel with the philanthropic commitments it has facilitated for clients in the region.

Carnegie Private Banking is this year’s winner for best bank for ultra-high net-worth individuals in the Nordics and Baltics.

For its mix of global capability with local expertise and philanthropic efforts, JPMorgan wins the award for Sweden’s best international private bank.

Sustainability principles are embedded across all the private banking products and services offered by Formue, the Nordics and Baltics’ best private bank for sustainability this year.