February 2010

Offshore banking centres and the code of secrecy are under attack by governments hungry for tax revenues. But Switzerland’s private banks are adapting fast, and finding strength in openness and innovation. Helen Avery reports.

Turmoil in banking has changed transaction services. Just as it has become crucial to extract every last efficiency from treasury, clients face new choices and new uncertainties. How should they choose their banks? How can they manage their risks? What should their treasury look like?

After hundreds of millions of euros of investment, banks are finding that the EU’s single payments area (SEPA) is not the promised land. Early adopters think the blame lies with politicians and want them to save Sepa by forcing through migration. Laurence Neville reports on a flawed but not failed initiative.

In all the talk of regulation, the distinction between settlement risk and counterparty risk seems to have been blurred. The FX market survived the crisis best.

It was meant to be another year of difficulty and potential disaster. But 2009 provided much more than even the arch-optimist could have expected.

The financial crisis and its reverberations have been felt dramatically across the private banking industry. The status quo has been altered and new leaders have emerged, as the Euromoney 2010 private banking poll reveals. Helen Avery reports.

Private banks draw on their groups’ retail base, while there has been a revival in appetite for structured products. Helen Avery reports.

The acquisition of Sal Oppenheim accelerates Deutsche Bank’s ambitious private banking growth strategy. Peter Lee reports.

Eager to move out of the low-yielding cash they sheltered in during the crisis, clients of Asia’s private banks are moving to riskier assets, with a renewed interest in diversification. Will that also mean diversifying their choice of banks? Lawrence White reports.

Brazilian equities proved irresistible to investors in 2009, but private bankers are looking elsewhere for returns amid fears that the love affair might not last another year. Chloe Hayward reports.

With a long-standing reputation for stability and sound advice, JPMorgan was ideally placed to profit from wealthy investors’ mistrust of other managers during last year’s market mayhem. Doug Wurth, head of its international private bank, tells Helen Avery how his division kept its cool and its clients during the crisis.