Wealth management had a tough 2022. Assets under management fell across the board, undermined by global uncertainty. But one region is not struggling. More wealth than ever is being formed in the Middle East, and more of it than ever is staying there. Private banks are hiring as fast as they can and expanding their repertoire in Shariah-compliant asset classes.

The German lender has named Claudio de Sanctis as its new head of private bank and created a single, unified division – part of longstanding plans to generate more income from the business by rooting out inefficiencies and tapping into new global income streams.

All private banks are different: in how they project their brand, build business, serve clients and generate fees. But they all seem to have two things in common. They love lending to rich people with big art collections and chatting about ocean preservation.

UBS’s acquisition of Credit Suisse will further reduce the number of large international private banks in Brazil. Julius Baer has been quick to take advantage of this.

UBS will face pressure to spin off Credit Suisse’s Swiss bank and may yet lose more private-banking assets. Coping with this will make managing down illiquid and hard-to-value markets positions look easy.

The French bank joins HSBC, DBS and others in setting up a full-service wealth management offering in the stable southeast Asian country, with all transactions booked in nearby Singapore.

With the advent of its strategic alliance with Japan’s Mizuho Financial, Lombard Odier now has wealth management tie-ups in seven Asia countries, with the promise of more to come.

The echoes of 2014 have been loud in Brazil’s private banking industry over the past 12 months. A precipitous fall in interest rates – followed by a meteoric rise – has left the market completely the same but also very different.

Pure-play Swiss private bank Julius Baer has had to reconfigure its business model for the 2020s. Chief executive Philipp Rickenbacher talks to Euromoney about why scale and nurturing talent are key to the long-term success of a firm that does just one thing and one thing well: serving wealthy private clients.

The Swiss bank stands apart from its peers. It helped its clients profit, both in the serene waters of 2019 and in the wake left by Covid-19 as it spread across the world in 2020

“I think this crisis has shown why being with a firm focused on wealth management as a primary business and having a global perspective matters to clients,” says Tom Naratil, co-chief executive of UBS global wealth management (GWM) and president of UBS Americas.

Our review period was a difficult one for private banking operations in the region, as it was worldwide: the fourth quarter wiped out huge chunks of revenues and assets for some international and local players, and it was a year that required sound individual advice for clients.

Household net financial wealth in CEE has roughly doubled since 2006 and private banking and wealth management services are increasingly in demand across the region.

For the second year running Credit Suisse is Latin America’s best bank for wealth management, this year bolstered by the completion of a three-year turnaround across the whole bank.

This year Lombard Odier is western Europe’s best bank for wealth management. It has $262 billion in client assets, making it a medium-sized player, yet it succeeds in having the feel of a boutique wealth manager thanks to its structure.