The private banking It is a business segment that financial entities dedicate to wealthy clients. Specifically, it is usual for them to exceed the million euros in assets and products and services are designed for them that are not very accessible to the rest of the population. Strategies vary depending on customer profile to which each entity aspires.
Banc Sabadellfor example, has adapted his plans to add and attract more users based on a survey in which they have counted their demands. one of them is the proximity network. Starting with half a million euros in assets, which are included in private banking and from one million, in the patrimony area, the entity has multiplied from 9,800 to about 30,000 its customers in Catalonia, in a few months, explains Xavier Castells, the person in charge of this business in the community. This evolution places this area of business among those that will drive the growth of the bank. Some were already customers who have received this special treatment and others are new. That year it expects to attract more than 2,200 customers in this segment in Catalonia, around a third of all those obtained in Spain; and a patrimony of about 194 million, with an increase of 8% and almost 4%, respectively.
The volume of business managed in private banking in Catalonia has gone from 9,000 to 16,000 million euros. Bankwide, total asset volume now stands at $36bn and is forecast to grow 7-8% this year.
More personal
The reinforcement of this business has also led to a drop from 52 to some 180 dedicated to this type of customer in Catalonia (from 175 to 482 at the level of the entire bank). The profile of the clients of this business is that of people between 60 and 65 years old that they have saved throughout their lives, although there are also specific cases of wealthier clients, says Castells.
The entity already began in 2018 with the preparation of the squad for MiFID II (all the staff dedicated to this have level 2 and the vast majority have the ‘European Financial Planner Adviser-EFPA-) and MiFIR, the regulations that reinforce investor protection.
The analyzes carried out, through surveys of more than 2,000 current and potential customers, have led to a change in the model, different from that of traditional private banking, and focused on the service possible in any of the branches of the financial institution’s network, as well as the different channels it has and with the support of the entity’s strategic partner, Amundi Asset Management and his own funds and those he produces for Sabadell AM.
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Sabadell, whose private banking brand is Sabadell Urquijo (the result of the acquisition of Banco Urquijo in 2006), decided to make a split within the personal banking segment and separate those customers who required advice due to the type of products they had. In total, some 63,000 clients switched to private banking, which now has 93,000 clients throughout Spain.
A subdivision has also been made in this segment. Clients with assets of less than a million euros (from half a million), some 78,000 throughout the country, are integrated into the area called private banking; and those with more than one million euros, in the wealth subsegment, where there are about 15,000.