Private banking in Spain : relevance and functions in the current financial environment

Abstract

Nowadays, the prívate banking sector is experimenting a successful growth since the last decade, in order to answer the needs of the wealthy people, who demands a special service to manage their patrimony. lt has not always been the same, the entities who made these functions several decades ago have changed, the wealthy client is not the same than before, and the markets and investment products have experimented a great transformation that has allowed to diversify this business. But not everything it has been a way of success without impediments. The financia! crisis in 2008 carne a new player who it has been converted in a main actor inside of the banking sector, his name is compliance. The regulation of Basellll, MiFID 11, AML, etc, they have been sorne of the colleagues with whom the prívate banking has had to live together in these years, which has obligated to the prívate bankers to change the way of performance. Prívate banking has a great opportunity of maintaining the activity in one of the sectors that is suffering the most from digital transformation. The great impact of the new technologies in order of displacing the personal bankers by the computers, the coming of the robo-advisors, or the appearance of fintech, are one of the severa! threats for the prívate banking. In this scenario, the prívate banking has the chance of preserving the figure of the prívate banker who advise the client, in order to promote the personal dealing versus the lA.