Private banking and Family Business: Positioning and Development

“Family firms are enterprises in which one or more families inter-connected by family links and sound alliances detain the power to appoint governance bodies”. This is how the Associazione Italiana delle Imprese Familiari defines family business. In this chapter the field of investigation is limited to the typology of services provided by financial intermediaries operating, in particular, in the areas of private banking and wealth management, to assist this specific market segment, where the complexity of private needs is bound to grow as a result of their interweaving with the evolution of business dynamics and vice versa. Family business designed services require the effort and the capacity to adopt an integrated view of the “family” and the “business” originated by the family itself. The analysis of client requirements through comprehensive view and planning is part of the mission of several private banking and wealth management structures, both for the nature of recipients and the typology of the contents. This goal can be pursued through processes able to develop synergies among the bank different business areas. In this chapter we shall review the reasons leading banks to create a structure where initially highly specialized business areas are later subject to integration not to miss growth opportunities in this sector. In particular, the perspective adopted is that of the evolution of private banking services toward family wealth management criteria, thus trying to identify necessary competencies and feasible organizational solutions.