Searching for an ideal banking balance

Barclays man makes move to Credit Suisse in search of private banking Holy Grail. There are two key catalysts which have shaped recent developments in wealth management, according to Richard Amos, who has joined Credit Suisse Private Banking (CSPB) as managing director after 23 years at Barclays. These are the coming together of the offshore and onshore business and a demand for more adventurous products, spurred by both inclement market conditions and the increasing sophistication of a new generation of investors. Certainly in the early to mid-1990s, Credit Suisse’s private banking efforts were more concentrated on their wood-panelled offshore headquarters in Guernsey. Swiss Bank Corporation and the Union Bank of Switzerland reaped the rewards of a base in nearby Jersey. But the accumulation of wealth is now much more transparent, and subject to stricter regulation in most jurisdictions, says Mr Amos. This means many former Guernsey clients now use London as their base. Mr Amos joined Credit Suisse because he wanted to operate in an environment where private banking accounted for a big chunk of group revenues – around 50 per cent in this case. He was disappointed with the umambitious contributions at Barclays. To prove his point, five key staff from Barclays later joined Mr Amos, though he insists it was “not a team grab”. He contrasts the relationship focus of Credit Suisse and other Swiss banks with the “brokerage mentality” of American competitors. But he is searching for the private banking Holy Grail, with a perfect balance between building relationships and product generation. While major banks such as Credit Suisse can, in theory, leverage from the derivatives and equity product expertise of their investment banking divisions, it is clear that there is very little centralisation. Although CSPB does use investment research from Credit Suisse Asset Management, product distribution is based on the open architecture model, with clients supplied the best available fund products from the market. Specialist interest rate products such as “reverse floaters” have been much in demand since the end of the bull run. The other huge change has been the interest in non-correlated hedge funds. According to Mr Amos, allocations of up to 20 per cent in hedge funds – usually through a fund of funds approach – from a typical Ł1m+ portfolio are no longer unusual. - Y B