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In banks' furious scramble for wealthy customers' investments, size is sometimes overrated.
Banks of all sizes are competing to get more of their most affluent customers' asset management business, hoping to lock down a steady source of fee revenues. The market is dominated by the country's largest banks and investment specialists, from JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America's Merrill Lynch to UBS and Credit Suisse.
But regional and community banks are also managing to carve out a piece of this lucrative business, in part by offering perks and personalized service to a somewhat less affluent clientele that might not interest bigger institutions.
"It's a jump ball," says Bruce Van Saun, the new chief executive of RBS Citizens Group. "I don't think that just because somebody's bigger they're necessarily going to have an advantage."
That sentiment was echoed by several bankers and asset management specialists in recent interviews.
For regional and community banks hoping to make a go of the business, they say success involves: picking the right battles, sticking to home turf, offering unique perks and remaining willing to share revenues with outside vendors.
Wealth management is "an attractive business, a good generator of fee income and capital-efficient," says JP Nicols, a partner at the consultancy Bank Solutions Group. "In this new environment we're in, it's a bit of a holy grail."
Small banks that ignore asset management also pass up an opportunity to make more money from their existing affluent customers, says Wayne Cutler, a managing director with the consultancy Novantas.
"The money's already somewhere," he says. "Either it's at a specialty advisor or brokerage firm ... or it's sitting in non-optimized products, like CDs and basic savings...