Over 265 organisations from 43 countries participated in the
PwC 2007 Private Banking/Wealth Management survey, making it truly a global survey.
Looking at the regional split we had a significant increase in the representation from Asia over 2005, particularly from Singapore and India. This reflects the growing wealth of the region and the explosion of the private banking industry. The number of participants from the Americas remained constant and is represented by the large global players. Saying that, the majority of participants were from EMEA. Most representation came from the established wealth management countries such as Switzerland, UK, Germany, and Luxembourg.
As is natural with such a highly fragmented industry, the participants represent a range of different types and sizes of institution. Participants are made up of global, international, national and niche players. There is therefore, value in the results for all types of wealth managers whatever their size, wherever they operate or whichever clients they serve.
The survey is truly representative of all senior management. As in 2005, responses were received from chief executives, finance directors, risk officers and business heads. This year we included questions to be completed by chief operating officers, HR directors and client relationship managers. This is reflective of the growing importance of people and systems within private banks and wealth managers, and this is borne out by the survey findings.
Many of the questions are structured in similar ways to those posed over the 14 years that we have been conducting our biennial surveys. As such, they allow us to identify clear trends and track changes in the industry in some detail. The
executive summary is analysed at a global level, but where interesting / differing regional trends have been identified, we have highlighted these. Furthermore, many of our questions have forward-looking elements, giving invaluable insight into future expectations.
The survey is split into seven sections:
- Chief executives’ views
- Markets and clients
- Systems and processes
- Profitability and performance metrics
- Human resources
- Client relationship managers
- Risk management and compliance.
By organising the survey in this way we provide both a broad picture of the main trends affecting the industry, and the opportunity to drill down into the detail of specific issues.
