J.P. Morgan Private Bank is recognised as the Best Private Bank – Overall at the Global Private Banking Innovation Awards 2022.
Global Private Banker evaluates the Best Private Banks at a global, regional and country-level based on unique achievements and business excellence of participating institutions for the period under review. This is documented by those private banks that have recorded strong financial performance, maintained growth in Assets under Management (AUM) and have demonstrated a track record of supporting private wealth customers through digital innovation. Winning private banks led by J.P. Morgan Private Bank possesses the requisite operational footprint, technological capabilities and depth of mandates to adapt and service the unique long-term needs of clients.
Financial Performance: sustained build-up of AUM
JPMorgan’s Private Bank has registered strong financial performance in 2021 with global segment revenues increasing 17% year-on-year to USD $7.7 billion driven by lending, annuity, and transactional investment. This despite a tumultuous year that has seen economic slowdown and market uncertainty buoyed by rising interest rates, inflation, and supply chain disruptions. The Private Bank (PB) streamlined its advisory capabilities with its private banking bench strength of client advisors increasing by 11% to 2,738 by year-end. Resultingly, JP Morgan’s Assets under Supervision of its Asset and Wealth Management (AWM) franchise rose by 16% to USD $4.3 trillion in 2021, while Assets under Management rose to USD $3.1 trillion.
The integrated team model complemented its hybrid approach of client engagement with digital channels being leveraged to support the unique needs of its customers. Client asset flows from AWM reached a new high of USD $389 billion in 2021, more than twice when compared to Bank of America’s USD $ 171 billion across its wealth businesses. With clients having direct access to a team of specialised advisors, its ratio of clients per advisor remains at 12:1, while 60% of AUM is currently being overseen by female and/or diverse portfolio managers consolidating the Private Bank’s position across geographies and segments.
Client experience: insights driven relationship building
The Private Bank’s depth and range of solutions go beyond traditional wealth management services to include generational planning, family & business governance, and philanthropy; the latter being critical given the Private Bank’s ongoing relationship with 50% of the world’s deca-billionaires (excess of USD $10.0 billion). Client value creation was further accentuated with the “23 Wall” global platform that leverages partnership between the Private Bank and Investment Bank (IB) teams providing direct access to capital, deal flow and links to private transactions.
Likewise, collaboration between the PB and IB teams helped facilitate thought leadership and insights events for clients across various business lines and topical areas. Importantly, insights-based 1000 + content was exclusively created for private banking clients, while those looking for deeper analysis could access additional material the myriad of content available across the Private Bank’s research hubs. Overall, 560,000 visitors accessed the content in 2021 with each visitor spending an average of two minutes per click.
Importantly, the Sustainable Investment (SI) team’s offerings were augmented by two acquisitions, namely OpenInvest and Campell Global driven to support the Private Bank’s broader commitment towards climate change and sustainable development as ESG based AUM across equities, fixed income and alternative investment asset classes reached USD $19.4 billion by end-November 2021 almost double from the previous year. This is comparatively smaller when compared with UBS whose sustainability focused and impact investing assets have grown by 78.4% YoY to USD $ 251 billion.
Innovation: facilitating continued digital engagement and operational efficiency
The Private Bank’s investment in financial technology enabled the institution to service its unique customers despite the pandemic-related restrictions. Remote working operations aside, priority areas for innovation included straight through processing, client onboarding, data structuring and organisation. This has had a material knock-on effect in improvements in the average speed of performance reporting (24x faster), account opening (5x faster) and mortgage financing (2x faster).
The Private Bank introduced a WhatsApp business account to communicate market commentary and information in both English and Traditional Chinese. This initiative was a landmark first for the Private Bank that also enhanced its chatbot functionality on its official WeChat account. It is also in line with the bank’s broader vision of building a front to back digital experience that leverages advanced analytics for more personalised customer journeys.
Moreover, the Private Bank streamlined its CRM, performance reporting and advisor “start-of-day” experience through centralisation of information. It introduced 21 different cards on the central dashboard in 2021 to give advisors alerts on top client activities, portfolio moves and relevant risk analytics. The Private Bank also expanded its money transfer capabilities through its J.P. Morgan Online International platform facilitating smaller self-directed cross-border transactions, while also piloting a new online trading solution for select digitally-engaged clients.
These outcomes have been a positive one as the Private Bank has seen more than 1/5th of all eligible transactions being conducted online, coupled with a 19% increase in the number of monthly active relationships and 10% increase in total visits compared with 2020. Comparatively, UBS has seen 70% of its equity trades being conducted via digital platforms as monthly online trading revenue increased by 65% YoY (Q1 to Q3 2021).
About
The Global Private Banking Innovation Awards 2022, organised by Global Private Banker, exist to identify, honour, and celebrate the world’s preeminent Private Banks, Family Offices and Wealth Managers that demonstrate elite levels of advisory, unbiased research and bespoke solutions, together with their distinguished individuals’ contribution to client service. Global Private Banker Awards are accolades of excellence and distinction, attributed to outstanding players; and provide unbiased and objective benchmarks for the global wealth industry. The GPB Awards is the world’s most authoritative and transparently judged awards program, and received more than 220 entries from 50 plus participating institutions during the 2022 awards cycle.
Nominations are now open for 2023 Global Private Banking Innovation Awards.
Author: Global Private Banker
