Private Banking

Private Banking is a word which covers both all of the services which Banks give to individuals usually with liquid wealth of above 1 million dollars, and also the division of that entity which does checking, savings, and loans for that clientle.

The word "private", in private banking is mostly a reference to minimizing taxes via careful allocation of assets. Offshore bank accounts can be used for this purpose. Also it alludes to private equity, which is essentially share ownership of a company not availble for the general public to buy in a stock market. Private Banking clients are usually given special opportunities to invest in these, along with special IPO opportunities.

Private Banking usually combines trust services, investment services, banking services, and tax services.

The largest private bank is Union Bank of Switzerland.

As of 2000, the amount on deposit with private banks in the world was about 1.3 x 10¹³ (13 trillion) dollars. To put that in perpective, the amount of assets that the largest United States bank has was about 1.3 trillion, and the total amount of printed cash in the United States at the time was 6 trillion.

Switzerland is the major location of private banking. As of this writing (2003), it has about 2 trillion in assets under management, which is about one third of all offshore money.

List of Marketing Topics	List of Management Topics
List of Economics Topics	List of Accounting Topics
List of Finance Topics	List of Economists