JPMorgan Private Bank has unveiled a host of new services in recent years, targeting key clients across North America, as well as world-wide.

Once again, Morgan Stanley takes the award for best private bank for sustainability in North America this year. The bank shows consistent leadership in this space with its Investing with Impact platform that now boasts over 300 financial products and accounted for $69 billion in client assets, as of September 2023.

Most high net-worth (HNW) individuals in the US plan to pass on their wealth to their children, but according to Bank of America Private Bank, fewer than half are confident that the next generation will make responsible decisions with their inheritance.

UBS’s wealth-management business had already seen enviable performance over the 10 years since it set itself the ambition of being the world’s leading global wealth manager in 2012. But, with the acquisition of Credit Suisse, the last 12 months have seen it take another step forward.

RBC’s global asset-management business underpins its wealth-management offering, and its already dominant position in the Canadian market is increasingly being complemented by a strong showing in the US, as well as other regions around the world.

At the heart of Goldman Sachs’s approach to discretionary portfolio management is the belief that all the bank’s institutional clients ought to have access to the kind of expertise and strategies that historically might only have been accessible to the very biggest.

JPMorgan’s wealth management business headed into the coronavirus pandemic with considerable momentum in high and ultra-high net-worth clients. It had only recently founded 23 Wall, a team to advise the biggest and wealthiest families on how to think strategically about the whole panoply of their private assets – everything from companies and property to sports teams and art.

The very best franchises serving family offices must get one thing right above all else: they must be able to deliver a customized offering that is sensitive to the particular needs of any client. The larger the institution, the more services it can deploy to do this, but the higher the risk of a cookie-cutter approach to clients, requiring them to adapt to the service provider rather than the other way around.

Key to succession planning is having a team with that critical combination of technical expertise in the relevant fields of estate and trust planning, but also a history of advising the wealthiest families in approaches that can then be successfully deployed and tailored in the service of new clients who might have similar characteristics.

The best private banking franchises today must do much more than simply preserve and grow wealth. They must also enable their clients to share that wealth to meet all manner of broader goals, whether traditionally philanthropic or through the more modern lens of social impact.

If JPMorgan Private Bank has one objective, it is to provide to clients that magic combination of an institution with the power of a global financial leader and the intimacy of a private-banking relationship. It is led by Mary Callahan Erdoes.

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.

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

Lombard Odier takes home the award for Euromoney’s best pure play private bank in the Middle East this year. The Swiss firm has transformed its presence in the region over the last few years.

Ultra-high net-worth can be the most challenging client segment to service for private banks. The investable assets these clients provide can come with challenging demands and complicated needs.

The challenges presented by the pandemic and broader geopolitical tensions have meant that the role of the chief investment office has become especially important to any private banking offering in the Middle East.

The family-office sector in the Middle East has become increasingly important in recent years, with more and more local and international family offices setting up in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

Discretionary portfolio management is an important part of Lombard Odier’s offering worldwide, and this is reflected in its business in the Middle East.

BNP Paribas Wealth Management has been named Euromoney’s best international private bank in the Middle East for 2024.

In a region where most private-sector commercial activity is undertaken by family businesses, succession planning and wealth transfer could not be more important.

Investment research is about more than producing reports and roundtables. It is about creating quality resources that clients trust and respect.

Emirates NBD has been named Euromoney’s best private bank for digital solutions in the Middle East for a second year in a row.

Emirates NBD Private Banking’s retail banking and wealth management division generated its highest-ever revenue and strongest loan growth during the awards period and the firm is named Euromoney’s best private bank in the Middle East this year.

Sustainable finance came under intense scrutiny across the Middle East when COP28 took place in Dubai last year.

Credicorp Capital retains its award for being the best private bank for discretionary portfolio management in 2024.

BTG Pactual’s next-generation service proposition is closely – but not exclusively – correlated with its family-office activities, so it is no surprise that its strength in the latter translates into leadership in the former.

Credicorp Capital’s investment in investment research is a differentiator for a local private bank. The regional coverage provides excellent breadth, but it is the depth in certain areas that provides its client base with different investment ideas.

In Brazil – and indeed throughout Latin America – the family-office business is critical for private banks.

If necessity is the mother of innovation, then it is perhaps no surprise that Santander Private Banking’s digital platform – which spans all the main Latin American private-banking clients – was the one that impressed the judges the most.