The Swiss private bank of J.P. Morgan is serving but the richest clients. And yet, the company is growing its business rapidly – and it wants more.
J.P. Morgan has almost a thousand employees in Switzerland, making it one of the biggest foreign banks in Switzerland. The company is happy to keep a low profile about its business with the rich and hardly says anything of substance in public.
Matteo Gianini, the head of Swiss private banking at the U.S. bank, has now made an exception and granted an interview to «24 heures», a newspaper in the French-speaking part of Switzerland (behind paywall). He told the newspaper that the private bank increased assets under management of Swiss clients by 15 percent in the past year.
Only for the Seriously Rich
A huge number for sure, given that private banking in Switzerland typically doesn’t generate a higher growth rate than 4 percent. Gianini’s bankers are eyeing only the really rich with assets worth 10 million Swiss francs and more.
The report suggests that the bank has some 40 billion francs in assets under management in Switzerland – with clients from the Middle East and Latin America holding substantial parts of those assets. Together with depositories of other financial market institutes, J.P. Morgan may have as much as 80 billion in assets under management, the newspaper said.
Hiring in German-Speaking Switzerland
Gianini also said that the bank not only had increased the amount of assets it manages but had also earned more money in doing so, increasing its profit by 17 percent.
The private banker now wants even more of the cake: Gianini hopes to boost its business in the German-speaking part of the country and is adding personnel in the region. The private bank has about 10 relationship managers in Zurich. The former UBS banker Cindy Eicher is in charge of the group.
