My Private Banking

Comment by Steffen Binder, MyPrivateBanking

Why the European Union Must Push Fee-Based Financial Advice

Only the early and smart investment of personal savings will enable the young to keep their standard of living 20, 30 or 40 years from today. Yet, financial advice for people with investable assets of all sizes is still mostly bad, misleading and ridden by conflicts of interest. In consequence, investors in the EU are wasting billions and billions of euros because they invest in poor financial products and pay too much in fees to their banks and financial advisers. ... more

Wealth Managers: The Wealth of Nations

Sovereign Wealth Funds – Role Model For Private Investors?

Receive $2,000 each Christmas from your government’s investment fund? Sounds great and is true if you live in Alaska. Although Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWF) seem to be a recent phenomenon, they have been around for decades.... more

Advice: How to Pay Your Wealth Manager

The Right Kind of Fee Arrangement

MyPrivateBanking has done a great deal of research on fee arrangements and comes to the conclusion that the fees private clients pay to their wealth managers are often too high.... more

Advice: Results of Private Banking Report

Dealing with Costs - Recommendations for Clients and Advisers

In our mystery shopping study we analyzed the investment proposals we received from the top-20 European wealth managers in respect to their asset allocation and cost structure. Both areas showed significant weaknesses and following we have compiled a list of recommendations for clients and as well wealth managers on how to deal with costs: ... more

New Guide from MyPrivateBanking Research

ETFs – Get the Most Out of Them without Taking All the Risks

Passive investing and Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) are all the rage. Increasingly, investors have come to the conclusion that active investing rarely beats market performance. However, as always when new products are becoming popular very quickly risks and unwanted side-effects are increasing as well. For the private investor it becomes trickier to select the optimal funds for his or her needs. ... more

ETFs - Get the Most Out of Them Without Taking All the Risks

Interview with Gerd Kommer, Author of the Buy-and-Hold-Bible

"Returns Come From Taking Risks, Not From Following Gurus"

Gerd Kommer is the author of various best-selling investment guides. He is a strong advocate of a passive, indexing-based investment strategy. In this interview, Gerd Kommer talks about why buy-and-hold is more alive than ever, what a good financial advisor should do, and why the wealth management industry must shrink to service private clients better. ... more

Interview with Alexandre Arnbäck, Passive Management SA

"It's difficult, costly and risky to try to beat the markets"

Alexandre Arnbäck is the co-founder of Passive Management SA and a former private banker with Lombard Odier. He is convinced that only a passive investment approach can give optimal performance with the lowest possible risk to private investors... more

Cut Your Wealth Management Costs

MyPrivateBanking Offers Fee Re-negotiation Service

If today you’re paying 2% to your wealth manager per year but could cut this by half, your returns increase by more than 25% after 20 years. We understand all the cost drivers, know the benchmarks in terms of what other clients pay for similar services and have a lot of experience in re-negotiating fees of wealth managers clients.... more

Comment by Steffen Binder, Research Director

The Online Future of Wealth Management

Talk to a private banker about the Internet and the usual response is a shrug of the shoulders. Dig a bit deeper and you hear that wealthy clients are too conservative, too cautious or too old to use the Internet, either for research or for transactions. Instead of just typing messages into their PC or smartphone, supposedly they don’t want to compromise their privacy on the worldwide web, they value personal service and the direct conversation over the phone or in person. ... more

Wealth Managers: Using the Web to Win New Clients

Top Five Website Functions of Private Banks

The future of private banking and wealth management is increasingly tied to the Internet. Today’s new generation of clients uses the website of a wealth manager as the primary information source at the start of any potential business relationship. As our recent report shows, most of them are not prepared for change yet, although we have also found some excellent examples of wealth managers harnessing the Internet ... more

How Wealth Managers Can Win Clients Online

Client Monitor Wealth Management

Wealthy Clients in Germany Threaten to Switch Banks

Private banking clients in Germany are by and large satisfied with their banks and wealth managers. However, nearly half of the clients (43%) still consider switching to another provider. This is the main finding of the MyPrivateBanking "Client Monitor Wealth Management Germany," for which we surveyed 300 wealthy private clients in Germany. With respect to past experience, the clients surveyed rated the offerings and services of their banks with an average of 4.1 points ... more

Needs, Attitudes, Satisfaction Levels of Wealthy Private Clients

New MyPrivateBanking Report Released

Best Private Banking Websites: UBS, Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse

The Private Banking websites of UBS, Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse come out as winners in a ranking of the online presence of the world's top 20 Wealth Managers. In the study UBS ranked first, with a total score of 82 out of possible 100 points. Overall, the report titled "How Wealth Managers Win Clients Online" came to the conclusion that the biggest Wealth Managers have no reason yet to be satisfied with their Internet presence.... more

What our Members Say (April 2010)

“Chances that your wealth manager is a future Buffett are about as high as winning the lottery”

Group discussions at MyPrivateBanking.com in April focussed towards the end of the month more and more on the implications of the Greek crisis for members’ wealth management. We will have a closer look on the comments in our May review, but as an appetizer an interesting viewpoint from Orchid, one of our members based in Hong Kong.... more

“You Don’t Have to Give 1% or More to a Bank and Will Most Likely Get Better Returns”

Advice: Wealth Management in Times of Crisis

What Private Investors Can Learn From the Greek Disaster

For the last few weeks we have been witnessing a Greek tragedy as it became obvious that the government of Greece was having increasing difficulty refinancing its mounting debt. The spread on Greek Euro bonds (which is the difference on interest between a Greek and, say, a German government bond) has been soaring. The Greek state has more than euro 300 bn of debt outstanding. Even with the most draconian of budget cuts it will be hard, in the long run, to save Greece from insolvency. ... more

What our Members Say (March 2010)

“You Don’t Have to Give 1% or More to a Bank and Will Most Likely Get Better Returns”

Group discussions at MyPrivateBanking.com in March covered a broad range of topics. Again costs have been a hot issue and we received several new postings, the latest on all-in fees (”Fee for fixed income portfolio of €2,000,000: 0.6% p.a. all in... more

“Chances that your wealth manager is a future Buffett are about as high as winning the lottery”

Guest Comment by Joseph Fuller, CEO Monitor Group

Bankers' Compensation: Two Ideas for Influencing Bankers, Empowering Investors

On Wall Street, bankers continue to speculate about a government role in their future compensation. Although policymakers shelved the issue during the health care showdown in the United States and the Greek debt crisis in Europe, that suspension is likely to be temporary. Seldom have the heads of the world’s leading economies demonstrated such unanimity of opinion on a controversy. ... more

Comment: Good Old Times for Offshore Wealth Managers Gone

Time for a New Strategy

The latest data from the Swiss National Bank show that foreign assets in private Swiss bank accounts have declined by almost 30% since the beginning of 2008 whereas domestic assets have declined by only about 14%. One important reason for this is the huge amount of net money outflows of private foreign money. ... more

Wealth: Engaging Potential Clients Online

Most Wealth Managers Miss Out on Opportunities of Interactive Internet

Wealth Managers do not use interactive tools sufficiently on their websites. In our recent study the majority of the websites displayed an outdated internet functionality from back in 2000. A failure to engage the client on the website and learn about his needs and preferences.... more

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