LLOYDS TSB Private Banking will open its first office in Glasgow next month.
The bank, which this week rebranded and raised its minimum investment level from GBP 100,000 to GBP 250,000, is opening an “airport lounge” style banking suite on West George Street for its private clients.
The format has already been tried successfully in Aberdeen, where the office met its annual target in just three months.
Malcolm Hilton, head of the private bank in Scotland, said Lloyds was also bumping up its product offering. It will add a series of hedge funds and foreign bond and currency products by the end of the year.
Lloyds TSB has shown commitment to growing its private banking operation in Scotland at a time when others have dipped their toe in the waters of the country and returned home – most notably US giant Merrill Lynch.
Hilton said: “We are greatly encouraged by the prospects here [in Scotland].” Four years ago Lloyds Scottish-based private clients were managed out of Newcastle. Today its team of relationship managers service 740 Scottish clients with a combined net worth of GBP 115 million.
Hilton believes that the plummeting equity markets of the past few years have made wealthy Scots weary of taking investment decisions themselves. More than 90 per cent of Lloyds private client business is discretionary. A reflection, Hilton, says of the increasing time-poor, cash-rich business community.
There are 33,000 households in Scotland with income of GBP 100,000 or more according to CACI Information Solutions, which compiles an annual Wealth of the Nation report. The private banking market is traditionally segmented. Globally, no private banking group manages more than 2 per cent of high net worth market.
Hilton said that the new Glasgow facility will also be open to corporate and commercial customers, and those who use Lloyds TSB’s “executive choice” service not just to transact their banking business but to work as well.
Like its Aberdeen’s lounge, the Glasgow office has meeting rooms, a work area with fax, photocopying and internet access, as well as a library of financial reading material.
