In this issue

Keeping and remaining in touch

This editor feels that this topic is approached every month, but the world is still on the long road to recovery after Covid.

In the UK, people can now go into restaurants and nightclubs and dance their hearts away while hoping they still have a lateral flow test at home. If not, then the mad rush to ease fears begins as forms are filled and packages are waited on.

Private banking is still in the thralls of change and the often promised “new normal”. Are clients rushing back to private banks for face-to-face interaction? Or do they prefer just popping onto a Zoom call? Do private bankers prefer that? Peering into a client’s home?

Discussion has been all the world has been able to do for the best part of a year and a half. You could not go out and physically hug your friend or slap them on the back or challenge them to judo, but you could give them a call and discuss the day’s events.

That’s if you’re lucky of course, it really depends on who your friends are. If I called some of mine and said: “shall we discuss the day’s events?”, they would more often than not reply “day’s events? What are you talking about?”

However, interaction is key in private banking and clients are becoming more savvy, and sometimes more wary, of products and services, particularly when it comes to ESG and the like.

With younger clients, emerging mass affluent bands, and more, a new type of client is coming to the sector. What on Earth could they want?

Patrick Brusnahan, editor