PWM/The Banker Private Banking Awards 2009

• Yuri Bender, editor-in-chief, Professional Wealth Management magazine, London.
• Shelby du Pasquier, co-head of the banking and finance group at Lenz & Staehelin, Switzerland.
• Seb Dovey, partner at Scorpio Partnership in London.
• Simeon Fowler, CEO of Fox Partnership, Singapore.
• Alois Pirker, research director for wealth management at Boston-based Aite Group.
• Amin Rajan, CEO of London-based Create-Research.
• Ray Soudah, founder of MilleniumAssociates in Switzerland.

Award winners

Best Private Bank in Asia

• Winner: HSBC
• Highly Commended: Credit Suisse
• Shortlisted: Barclays Wealth, DBS

Best Private Bank in the Middle East

• Winner: HSBC
• Highly Commended: Barclays Wealth, Blominvest

Best Private Bank in North America

• Winner: Northern Trust
• Highly Commended: JPMorgan
• Shortlisted: Credit Suisse, BNY Mellon WM

Best Private Bank in Europe/Switzerland

• Winner: Pictet
• Highly Commended: Julius Baer, Credit Suisse

Best Global Private Bank

• Winner: HSBC
• Highly Commended: Credit Suisse, Julius Baer

Best Private Bank for Portfolio Management

• Winner: Sarasin
• Highly Commended: Credit Suisse, JPMorganf

Best Private Bank for Innovation

• Winner: Sarasin
• Highly Commended: Rathbones
• Shortlisted: Berenberg, Blominvest, Iveagh

Best Alternatives Provider

• Winner: Man Group

Best Structured Product Provider

• Winner: HSBC

Best Global Custody Provider

• Winner: Clearstream

Best External Fund Manager

• Winner: BlackRock
• Highly Commended: JPMorgan

Best Strategy for Growth

• Winner: Julius Baer
• Highly Commended: DBS, Pictet
• Shortlisted: Blominvest

Private Banking Personality of the Year

• Winner: Remy Best, Pictet
• Shortlisted: Peter Flavel, Standard Chartered.
• Alfredo Gysi, BSI.
• Walter Bertchtold, Credit Suisse.

Best Leadership Team in Global Private Banking with Quantitative Analysis by Scorpio Partnership

Winner: Barclays Wealth

Highly Commended: BNY Mellon WM, Northern Trust

PWM/The Banker's inaugural Private Banking Awards were established with the aim of provoking a move to greater transparency and accountability in a growing global wealth management industry, which sees itself increasingly under the gaze of national and supra-national regulators. We also felt it was time to properly reward institutions which are doing their best for the private client.

Our researchers contacted 350 private banking and wealth management institutions in Europe, North America, Asia and the Middle East over a three-month period to request their detailed submissions. Latin America was also recognised as a vital area of private banking expansion and is likely to be featured in 2010.

The panel of judges included two of the best-known global consultants in private banking, the leading asset management integration adviser, Asia's key wealth management recruitment specialist, an expert on challenges facing the American financial services industry and a partner of one of Geneva's best placed law firms. Together, they are familiar with all aspects of the private banking industry and have worked with groups both large and small in every sector and every geographical region.

Firstly, the judges examined quantitative data supplied by the entrants. This included three years worth of figures detailing capital adequacy requirements, clients' assets under management, asset flows, net profits, cost-to-income ratios and adviser-to-client ratios.

Following this, submissions on portfolio management, innovation, client communication, technology, use of third-party products, fee structures and performance were all compared. The judges also looked at the various groups' due diligence processes and in particular how they reacted to the Madoff fraud.

After the shortlists had been drawn up by the judges, they were keenly debated and then the panel voted on the winners. The quantitative data supplied was verified by Scorpio Partnership, which also used a proprietary formula to compute - with a series of key performance indicators - which private bank had been most effectively managed by its leadership team. The winner in this key category was Barclays Wealth.

The institutions entering the awards were also asked to nominate their best and most trusted third-party providers for hedge funds and other alternatives, structured products, fund management and global custody. Man Group was by far and away the private bankers' favourite alternatives provider. BlackRock and JPMorgan were almost inseparable, with both having built up an excellent reputation as fund providers, and the judges voted by the narrowest of margins in favour of BlackRock in a tie-breaker.

Varied offerings

It soon became apparent during the judges' meetings however, that the offerings of the various institutions varied hugely. Some were more concerned with selling products, others with asset allocation and a select few highlighted customer service.

Some clear leaders quickly emerged. While global brands with strong local representation were winners - HSBC as the standout bank among the entrants performed extremely well in this screening process - a second tier, including Swiss banks Pictet, Julius Baer and Sarasin, also created a strong impression. Sarasin was particularly lauded by the panel for its unique commitment among private banks to socially responsible and sustainable investing. It took the honours in both the Portfolio Management and Innovation awards. What these institutions may have lacked in penetration of numerous markets, they made up for in solidity, customer service and innovation.

Banks' business models came under particular scrutiny. Pictet was praised in some quarters for its response to the changing climate in banking secrecy, with other institutions accused of "burying their heads in the sand". This was countered by an opposing view that the only global players to really respond to this challenge, and design a viable strategy to tackle local, regulated markets through the 'onshore' model, were Credit Suisse and UBS.

The judges lamented the fact that UBS had declined to enter the awards. Despite the fact that the bank had suffered well-publicised problems recently, the judges felt the Swiss player would have been a serious contender for a number of the accolades.

HSBC was the winner in the best bank categories for the Global Private Bank and also for Asia and the Middle East. In both of those regions, its global brand has been combined with an early local presence in the majority of countries. The clarity and structure of its presentations was also worthy of note. The judges heaped praise on the success of the management team in a challenging, long-term integration of several subsidiaries into the HSBC mother-ship.

Credit Suisse, however, also deserves a special mention. The Swiss giant did not win any awards, despite excellent results and market penetration, but was pipped to the post in several categories. Among the judges, there were strong advocates of the Zurich institution in the Global, Portfolio Management and European categories.

Julius Baer came close in the award for Europe/Switzerland, where it finished second to Pictet, but it won the Best Strategy for Growth. This was a reflection of the fact that the judges believed the bank had done all the right things in terms of management moves, of splitting investment from private banking and hiring customer relationship managers in several different jurisdictions. The judges felt that these plans have not yet been reflected in the bank's numbers. A lack of players with strong penetration of European onshore markets was also identified by the judges, so the European award was made on the basis of strength in Switzerland and several regional markets.

Northern Trust won the award for Best Private Bank in North America. The judges backed its family-led approach, with no pressure to sell products of any particular group. This gave it the edge over JPMorgan, which was highly commended in this category.

Honourable mentions

Although they did not win any awards, some smaller players were deemed worthy of a shortlisting or commendation by the judges. The crystal-clear presentation and strategy of Rathbones in London was seen as particularly impressive, as was the product innovation of Berenberg in Germany, Blominvest in Lebanon and Iveagh in the UK.

In a world where the idea of core-satellite and passive investing is gaining increasing credence, it was surprising how few wealth managers - Iveagh being one of the exceptions - mentioned the extensive use of exchange traded funds within their offering. In those cases where groups were running neck and neck, it was decided that the judges should always put the interests of private clients first and use their expertise to assess how the policies of an institution would affect these individuals in terms of preserving and managing their wealth, communicating with and reassuring them and aligning their interests with those of the client's family.

Chris Mears, chief executive, HSBC Private Bank

Winner: HSBC

Best Private Bank in Asia

Best Private Bank in the Middle East

Best Global Private Bank

Chris Meares, the smiling, unassuming chief executive of HSBC Private Bank, has reason to look contented as he sips tea on the 15th floor of his bank's Canary Wharf headquarters.

His net new money, delivered by a global force of more than 3000 private bankers still managed to break the $30bn barrier in 2008, just 16% down from the previous year, despite the severity of the global crisis. The leader of the world's fifth largest wealth management operation, running about $350bn, has also been busy with integration.

The absorption of the 150-year-old Swiss-German Guyerzeller bank into the HSBC empire and its recent merger with the more recently acquired Safra and Republic banks to create a single entity in Switzerland - including the migration of operating platforms - were not exactly child's play. But Mr Meares shrugs it off as if it is all in a day's work.

While the group succeeded in keeping most of the Republic staff, merging together four French onshore private banks under the HSBC banner was a trickier affair. There are obvious benefits to working for such an all-encompassing global brand, providing you keep your head down. Those who prefer a more autonomous culture - a good example was the Taittinger-owned Banque du Louvre, taken over by HSBC in 2003 - often end up fleeing, as did the private bank's investment team to Ofivalmo.

"Clearly, culture and a willingness to work and operate within the HSBC world is pretty important. We don't consciously do something to cause people to go," says Mr Meares, a 26-year group veteran, who has served in Hong Kong, the Middle East and New York and has been involved as strategic planner in a number of the bank's acquisitions. "But if they don't like it, they have their minds made up. Getting the culture right is pretty important with an acquisition."

Every time HSBC buys a bank in a new country, it is an opportunity for the private banking franchise to be extended, so unlike many competitors, this is a truly global business with local roots. "There is nobody else in the Middle East with the regional presence we have," says Mr Meares. "We can do things locally, regionally and globally, which many of our competitors can't do."

One of these has been the Islamic banking product line, to which the group has been 100% committed and from which the private bank has benefited hugely, says Mr Meares. But Asia - where HSBC's global competitors UBS and Credit Suisse are particularly active - is fast becoming the new private banking battleground.

Both Michael Geoghegan, HSBC's chief executive, and former asset management boss Mark McCombe are about to relocate there, and Mr Meares - a frequent visitor to Hong Kong and China - does not rule out a similar move. Currently, about 25% to 30% of business comes from the Far East and he expects this to move to 50% over the longer term.

One of the most effective channels of growth for HSBC Private Bank has been internal referrals, particularly from HSBC's commercial banking department, servicing 3 million business owner-managers. "If you look at our competitors, their internal strength is generally the investment bank," he says. "True, investment banks give them a product flow they can tap into, but commercial and retail banks are where we see the huge benefits."

Sherry Barratt, president of financial sservices, Northern Trust

Winner: Northern Trust

Best Private Bank in North America

Asked what really differentiates Northern Trust, which has made a huge impact in the cut-throat US wealth management world, from its competitors, the group's president of personal financial services, Sherry Barratt, points to the fiduciary mindset.

Acting as a trusted adviser, with the first responsibility to the beneficiary or client rather than the employing bank, is a role few institutions can claim to fill. "Fiduciary management is our heritage, it is part of our DNA and is fundamental to our idea of wealth management," says Ms Barratt, who runs the business across 80 offices in the US controlling more than $500bn. "This influences how we approach clients, product selection and use, multi-generational appeal and how we work with families."

This mindset is combined with open architecture to give ultra-high-net-worth clients a real choice of products, although some prefer the house brand, she says.

For Northern Trust, says Ms Barratt, 2008 was a recognisable time as a repeat of the experience the group had gone through in the Great Depression of the 1930s, when there was a huge flight to safety among private clients.

It was also a profitable time for Northern, with new clients joining, others consolidating their business, and families bringing relatives who had experienced poor service or performance elsewhere, into the fold. Net new profits were 9% up from 2007 to $795m.

It has also proved to be a period when the group's foray into behavioural finance techniques really began to pay off. These concepts and theories - encouraging an ongoing dialogue with clients to dynamically re-assess investment goals - are currently being formalised into the group's asset allocation and investment process.

Access to portfolios for clients, their families, advisers and lawyers, is increasingly achieved through the Private Passport electronic tool. This technology was originally developed for pension fund and sovereign wealth fund clients requiring performance analytics and other complex reporting, but has since been adapted for a taxable environment. It allows clients to see a macro overview of their portfolio or drill right down to individual positions. "We have managed to make this huge technical infrastructure more user-friendly for private clients," says Ms Barratt.

Jacques de Saussure, lead partner for private banking, Pictet

Winner: Pictet

Best Private Bank in Europe/Switzerland

Private Banking Personality of the Year

Synonymous with Geneva, the old white-gloved institution of Pictet is gradually but determinedly changing its business model, in response to external regulatory pressures - including the demise of banking secrecy - and customer demand for new-style investments.

The main change is a diversification from pure private banking into fund and asset management, with the thematic approach proving the most successful.

"In the 30 years I have been with the bank, I have seen changes to the business model and culture without compromising our roots and basic style," says Jacques de Saussure, the lead partner for private banking at Pictet.

Founded in 1805, Pictet launched its first themed fund in 1994, investing in biotechnology, as a direct response to the needs of its wealth management clientele. But its Pictet Funds division, managing €67bn of the €150bn-plus overseen for the bank's clients, remains integrated into the wealth management structure.

Under the stewardship of Remy Best - the up-and-coming younger partner of Pictet with an increasing influence on the group's direction - the funds franchise continued to launch products during the crisis. A simple sovereign fund, offering a choice of euro, Swiss franc and US dollar classes, helped garner inflows of €16bn into the group's cash management range last year. Mr Best was also instrumental in launching a timber fund and a mega trend product, pooling eight of the bank's themed funds. Thematic investments now account for €8bn.

But the partners are not afraid to change direction when they need to. While there has always been a strong commitment to Asian markets, including Japan and Hong Kong, a plan to grow in core onshore markets - with the funds business in particular expected to concentrate on Switzerland, Italy, Germany, France and Spain - has been largely dispensed with, in favour of a focus on more opportunistic growth.

Mr de Saussure recognises that despite the fast-unifying Europe, the sources of money seeking a private home are becoming even more diverse. "Many investors around the world come from countries with exchange controls, a lack of political stability and the absence of a good banking system. Some of these countries are in the same situation as Europe was 40 years ago."

While Pictet has undoubtedly done well in Europe and Switzerland, as customers defected from larger rivals in 2008, some clients were surprised by the move from the bank's lakeside headquarters to the former industrial area of Praille-Acacias-Vernet.

Mr de Saussure, however, believes the new building blends both traditional and futuristic requirements, praising the insulation system as one of the best in Europe, in terms of its sustainability and friendliness to the environment. But the more old-fashioned application seems even more important. "The insulation also gives us a strong sense of confidentiality and privacy," he adds.

Burkhard Varnholt, chief investment officer and head of asset management, Sarasin

Winner: Sarasin

Best Private Bank for Portfolio Management

Best Private Bank for Innovation

Bank Sarasin's successful investment process has been built around a blend of top-down asset allocation and stockpicking. During the crisis, Sarasin had the lowest quarterly allocation of client assets to equities and the highest to corporate credit among its peer group. But as soon as the second quarter of 2009 began, portfolio managers were told to massively raise their clients' equity allocations, says Burkhard Varnholt, the bank's chief investment officer and head of asset management. This was in contrast to other Swiss banks, which instead lowered their equity allocations, he adds.

His stock and bond selection process combines factors including a thematic-led approach - pioneered in London by fellow investment committee member Guy Monson since the 1980s - and a sustainability filter, which has been the Basel-based bank's greatest innovation within the private banking community.

A sustainability review has totally changed the culture of the bank. Mr Varnholt - previously head of products with Credit Suisse in Zurich - believes Sarasin's sustainability filter typically adds 3% to 4% to equity performance over a 12-month period.

"We could not close our eyes to the fact that our analysts were seeing an increasing gap between those portfolios using a sustainable overview and those that didn't," says Mr Varnholt. As a result, it was decided to blend the thematic and sustainable approaches to increase alpha. Since December 2008, all private banking mandates are managed according to environmental, social and governance research, unless a client opts out. So far, not a single one has.

And with good reason. The approach vastly reduces drawdowns, says Mr Varnholt. "Over the past 20 years, we have never held shares or bonds of a company, using a sustainable screen, that has gone bankrupt."

He describes 2008 as a challenging but gratifying year for the bank, with most private clients at the end of the stormy year finding the value of their portfolio unchanged. Returns have been boosted by the move to a gross domestic product-weighted benchmark in all equity and fixed-income portfolios. Currently, a typical private client portfolio is allocated at least 20% to emerging markets, and this is about to increase to 30%.

Peter Clarke, chief executive, Man Group

Winner: Man Group

Best Alternatives Provider

Hedge fund and specialist Man Group has been hit hard by the crisis, with assets under management shrinking by nearly half to $43.8bn from $79.5bn in June 2008. But flows are returning, and despite the group's bad run, it remains the favourite alternatives provider for private banks and their wealthy clients, who have been responsible for sales of $5bn in the first six months of 2009, dwarfing the inflows coming from institutions.

Under chief executive Peter Clarke, who replaced Stanley Fink in 2007, the group has been restructured, with the key multi-management divisions of RMF, Man-Glenwood and Man Global Strategies - previously encouraged to compete for the same business - being increasingly integrated under one umbrella, with their investment teams and philosophies being combined.

Despite the end of the previous "divide and conquer" strategy, the flagship fund remains the separate, trend following, highly computerised, AHL, which gained 33% in 2008, with improving performance in the past couple of months after a poor start to the year for chartered tax adviser-style managers. Its advocates maintain that the fund has averaged 16% returns since 1985. AHL Diversity - a joint venture between Man Group and Dexion - has recently been packaged as a Luxembourg-domiciled Ucits III fund, which makes it even more attractive to the wealthy investor client base.

Insiders say the gradual penetration of the continental European private client market has been a slow and steady process, although given an initial boost by the purchase of RMF in Switzerland in 2001, which gave the group a new joint headquarters in the middle of Swiss wealth management territory.

Winner: HSBC

Best Structured Product Provider

The award for best structured products provider reflects the significant efforts HSBC has been making to push its global structured business to the private banking segment, says Thibaut de Roux, global head of structured derivatives at HSBC Global Banking and Markets. "Clients welcome our global reach with strong capability in emerging markets, specifically in Asia where BRIC [Brazil, Russia, India and China] and Asian currencies baskets are making a strong comeback," he explains.

The main use of structured products for private banking clients continues to be as a way of accessing opportunities in the equity markets, explains Christophe Chazot, HSBC's co-head of global equities, although they are looking for different types of products than they would have gone for in the past. These days the demand is for simpler products with shorter maturities, he says, driven by higher levels of volatility in the markets.

"Private clients are eager to keep a certain revenue stream in a very low-yield environment," says Mr Chazot. "The quality of the secondary market, and the fact that HSBC credit has stayed very stable when compared to competitors, are the drivers of our successful product offering."

Mr de Roux believes that being truly multi-asset class with a wide range of underlying markets such as foreign exchange, rates and equities, and an efficient delivery platform and secondary market support infrastructure, have enabled HSBC to build a successful structured products business. "As usual, private banks are looking for good ideas and competitive pricings with relevant macro-research backing," he says, adding that "an online platform with live dealing and full straight-through processing is now a key requirement for clients".

Philip Brown, member of the executive board at Clearstream Banking

Winner: Clearstream

Best Global Custody Provider

"Clearstream is well aligned with private banks. We offer a high-touch service to clients who have complex needs, just like private banks themselves," says Philip Brown, member of the executive board at Clearstream Banking. Asked what makes Clearstream stand out from the crowd, he stresses the importance attached to the building of true personal relationships with clients, and believes this is founded on a long history of service delivery.

"This has been particularly significant in the recent crisis as in a downturn, clients really appreciate dependability," he explains. "Furthermore, Clearstream is a risk-averse organisation that brings real risk-mitigating products, such as tri-party repo to support collateralised lending of long cash balances, to the private banking community. By using our advanced infrastructure, private banks moving from non-collateralised to collateralised lending have not had to build their own capability."

Mr Brown believes Clearstream's investment funds product (CFF for settlement and Vestima+ for order routing) to be flexible and open, and particularly suited to private banks, who need an efficient and low-risk infrastructure to support their highly demanding clients. He says: "Like private banks, we treat funds as just another asset class and have striven to deliver the same sort of efficiency for funds that we offer for bonds and equities." "For private banks looking for one-stop shopping, this is a critical differentiator."

Part of the Deutsche Börse Group, Clearstream is headquartered in Luxembourg, but also has offices in Dubai, Hong Kong, London, New York, Toyko and Singapore, where it is looking to expand its operations by opening a new office and improve its levels of service in the Asia-Pacific region. It provides custody services for Eurobonds and securities instruments in 45 markets around the world, and has more than €10,000bn in assets under custody.

James Charrington, head of international retail business, BlackRock

Winner: BlackRock

Best External Fund Manager

US giant BlackRock, probably the world's most high-profile manager today with assets under management totalling $1370bn, is sometimes portrayed as offering merely a handful of large funds or 'blockbuster' products. While admitting that sales channels sometimes concentrate on a small number of core funds, James Charrington, the firm's head of international retail business, says the group actually boasts a very broad range of strategies for all client types and tastes. "Within our product range we have core funds in both the equity and the fixed-income space, and then more specialist funds that might be more sector orientated, such as gold, mining or emerging markets funds," says Mr Charrington.

But there is still room for more specialised offerings, with what Mr Charrington labels the more "esoteric" range pioneered in Luxembourg, still relatively new and deploying a much broader range of investment techniques.

BlackRock's product range is set to increase significantly once the acquisition of Barclay's Global Investors goes through, notably through BGI's range of indexed and exchange traded funds products. Although BlackRock is seen as very much an active manager, Mr Charrington welcomes the addition of these passive vehicles. "We are creating a range of tools for clients, and active and passive are both important parts of that. I think we have moved on from this slightly sterile debate about 'is it active or is it passive?'. Frankly it can be whatever you want it to be, depending on who your client is and what they want."

The acquisition will increase the size of BlackRock even further, which, says Mr Charrington, brings its own benefits. "We are a massive organisation, and going to get even bigger. There are advantages to being large," he explains. "Scale is one. Given the amount of money that we manage there are all sorts of efficiencies in terms of infrastructure and technology, but it also means we are a big customer of the marketplace and that creates efficiencies of its own that we can pass directly onto our clients. Size is important - you can always make a virtue of being small as well, but I'll leave that to the small guys to do."

Boris Collardi, chief executive, Julius Baer

Winner: Julius Baer

Best Strategy for Growth

Of all the major wealth management groups with global ambitions, the one taking a lead in strategic thinking is Bank Julius Baer, led by Boris Collardi, currently enjoying an extended run as the favourite poster-boy of Swiss private banking.

Shortly after taking over from his mentor and chief executive Alex Widmer, after the latter's sudden death, Mr Collardi shut down the investment products division, after a strategic review, in a bid to leave private bankers totally independent as to the type of strategies they sell. Later, the group split asset management from private banking into two autonomous divisions. Consultants claim this was a commercial imperative, rather than any altruistic move towards customers in the bid to further purify Baer's self-proclaimed 'pure-play' private banking offering.

More recently, Mr Collardi and his colleagues have taken over the Swiss private banking business of ING, adding another SFr15bn (€9.9bn) and 300 staff to give a total of SFr160bn of private client assets under management from its head office in Zurich's Bahnhofstrasse.

Recent strategies at the so-called 'New Baer' were at least partially devised at an offsite strategy meeting in December 2005, held in the Swiss Alps. The management team has since employed a strategy of expanding both offshore and onshore, to reflect the changing nature of incoming business.

Onshore expansion has been accelerated since the recent demise of Swiss banking secrecy, with the opening of a branch in Munich, to strengthen a regional German presence in Frankfurt, Hamburg, Düsseldorf and Stuttgart.

Baer continued to recruit customer relationship managers during the crisis, in Latin America, Africa, eastern Europe and Asia in particular, reflecting its focus on growing economies. The bank expected to add 50 private bankers in 2009. But there is a tough ongoing performance management of client-facing bankers, meaning that the actual numbers recruited are much higher than the published ones. About 20 are expected to drop out at the end of each year because they don't meet their targets.

Analysts and consultants believe Mr Collardi's team and their predecessors have made all the right moves in terms of structure and culture changes. The question is: will this help them deliver increased asset flows, customer numbers, performance and market penetration in the future?

Winner: Barclays Wealth

Best Leadership Team in Global Private Banking with quantitative analysis by Scorpio Partnership

The ability to handhold clients through the crisis and a strong growth in client deposits contributed significantly to the expansion of Barclays Wealth in 2008, explains chief executive Thomas Kalaris. Overall, the UK wealth manager, with global assets under management of more than $221bn registered net new asset flows for £3.2bn ($5.2bn) for the year.

Increased lending, a strong focus on risk management and tight cost control also helped to drive profit growth. Operating costs reduced by 4%, despite continued investment in people, technology and operating platform upgrades. "A disciplined control of all operating costs, which is essential to the running of any successful business in all economic cycles, is particularly crucial when economic and market conditions are severe," says Mr Kalaris. "Balancing that with a large investment programme is an art as well as a science."

The business, resilient in the UK, expanded into the US - through the acquisition in September 2008 of the Lehman US private investment management business - and India, while a strong year-on-year performance was seen in the Middle East and north Africa. "Asia-Pacific and continental Europe were difficult markets to make progress in," concedes Mr Kalaris, "but, relatively speaking, we maintained our position."

Barclays Wealth operates on a wholly open architecture platform and, through its partnership with Barclays Capital and BGI, offers to its clients access to institutional investment solutions not generally available to the private investor, says Mr Kalaris. "This is an important point of differentiation for us and was a significant contributor to the growth seen in 2008," he adds.

The bank operates through a global management committee, consisting of regional heads and supported by a shared global infrastructure. "We have a culture that nurtures an entrepreneurial approach and our leaders have the ability to communicate goals and vision. My adage is 'If you have the best people, you win'," he says, explaining that meritocracy is part of the bank's culture.

Mr Kalaris does not like resting on his laurels and, looking ahead, he believes that "there is still much to do, as the bar keeps getting higher".

"We continue to invest in technology and infrastructure and we will constantly seek to upgrade our talent pool and strategically invest in chosen markets across the globe, with particular emphasis on the US, UK and key high-growth markets."