In The Hallowed Halls Of Private Banking

The cliché of private banking is that it takes place in such rarefied locations such as the Bahnhofstrasse in Geneva and in shielded villas with simultaneous vistas of Lac Leman and the Matterhorn. Private banking exudes images of fauteuils deeper than a Faraya snowdrift, secret code words, and après-banking parties that are as lascivious as they are discreet. Technically however, private banking is management of finances to the client’s best advantage in exchange for fixed and performance-based fees. Some banks for this reason call their private banking operations by different names, such as wealth management center. As such, private banking has a primary entry barrier determined by disposable wealth. This barrier is not defined strictly. Some banks capitalize on the appeal of private banking when marketing individual products with a participation requirement of just $10,000. More common, however, is a classification under which one can access the base camp of