Private Banking in Frankfurt

Private banking is the part of a bank that looks after clients with larger assets through one personal advisor. That advisor covers investments, loans against securities or real estate, succession and foundations, and brings in tax, legal or real estate specialists when a case needs them.

In Germany the word "Privatbank" has two meanings. It can mean a bank owned by private shareholders instead of a savings bank or a cooperative bank, which makes Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank private banks in the legal sense. It also means a smaller house that lives from wealthy clients, such as the old family banks. When people search for a privatbank in Frankfurt, they usually mean the second kind.

Metzler started as a cloth trading house in Frankfurt more than 350 years ago and calls itself Germany's oldest bank with an unbroken tradition of family ownership. It is the classic example of an independent private bank in Frankfurt.

Two other old Frankfurt names now belong to a Dutch group. ABN AMRO has merged Hauck Aufhäuser Lampe into ABN AMRO Bank N.V. and runs its German wealth management under the name Bethmann HAL, with more than €70 billion under management and a target of around €100 billion. Corporate banking and asset servicing carry the ABN AMRO brand.

The large banks have their own private banking units. Deutsche Bank, headquartered in Frankfurt, has put private banking and wealth management in Germany under one head and calls itself the clear market leader among affluent and wealthy clients there. It has since moved Deutsche Oppenheim Family Office into its unit for ultra-high-net-worth clients. Commerzbank has a separate division for ultra-high-net-worth clients and family offices with teams in Frankfurt, Berlin, Düsseldorf, Munich, Hamburg and Stuttgart. The local savings bank runs 1822 Private Banking: private banking at Frankfurter Sparkasse sits in the Main Tower on Neue Mainzer Straße.

Investment advice to private clients follows the EU directive MiFID II, which Germany wrote into the Securities Trading Act (WpHG). BaFin's FAQ on the conduct rules shows what this means in daily work. Phone calls that can lead to an order are recorded. After each piece of advice the client receives a suitability statement that explains why the recommendation fits the client's goals and risk profile. Costs and inducements have to be disclosed.

A client with a discretionary mandate, where the bank decides on the investments, gets a message when the portfolio has lost 10 percent in a reporting period, and again at every further 10 percent. Advisors must prove their expertise, a point BaFin covers in the same FAQ. For a client these rules explain the paperwork after a meeting. For someone new to the job they fill the legal module of advisor training, such as the Frankfurt School course named below.

The banks are rebuilding their structures. ABN AMRO has folded Hauck Aufhäuser Lampe into its German business, Deutsche Bank has brought its advisors for the largest clients into one unit, and Commerzbank has set up its ultra-high-net-worth division.

Commerzbank names the topics that wealthy families ask about: passing assets to the next generation, strategic asset allocation, access to private markets and large financing structures. Private markets bring semi-liquid funds and ELTIFs into the advisory talk, a topic of its own on the private markets page. Digital assets are the other new field. Advisors in Germany can now offer tokenized real-world assets through the GDX Primary Market, and bitcoin comes up in portfolio talks as well.

Finance Loop is the meeting place in Frankfurt where private bankers, advisors and investors talk with the people who build new investment products and platforms. It connects the finance, IT and AI communities and is built in collaboration with TechQuartier and Frankfurt Main Finance.

For advisors the most direct format is the one-day masterclass Bitcoin for Investors, held in German in Frankfurt, Munich and Berlin, on portfolio fit, access routes and custody. Finance Loop Premium Partner Gubbi brings its work on tokenized assets for advisors into Finance Loop events. Finance Loop has also been partner of the Cashflow Conference at Messe Frankfurt, a large conference for private investors, and of the FinTech Founder & Investor Evening, where the wealth management software company Fincite was one of the presenters. Neighboring fields have their own pages: wealth management in Frankfurt and capital markets in Frankfurt.

Private banking is the bank relationship: an advisor, accounts, loans and investment advice for a wealthy client. Wealth management is broader and often means that a professional manages the whole portfolio, plans succession and coordinates tax and legal advice. In Germany the line is blurring. Deutsche Bank runs both under one head, and a private wealth management team in Frankfurt usually sits inside the private bank.

Among the private banks in Frankfurt are Metzler, still owned by the founding family, and Bethmann HAL, which belongs to ABN AMRO. Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank run private banking from their Frankfurt head offices, and Frankfurter Sparkasse has 1822 Private Banking. For private banks in Germany outside Frankfurt, the Commerzbank teams for the wealthiest clients show where they cluster: Berlin, Düsseldorf, Munich, Hamburg and Stuttgart.

Private banking jobs in Frankfurt are posted on the career pages of the banks named above. For people already in the job, Frankfurt School private banking training is the next step: the certificate course Anlageberater (Private Banking) is for advisors who want to move up, with four modules on law, tax, investments and economics, held in German on the Frankfurt campus. Roles in the wider field are on the Finance Loop jobs page.

The private banking kongress, which calls itself Germany's largest wealth management forum, travels between Cologne, Munich, Hamburg and Berlin and does not stop in Frankfurt. In Frankfurt the topics of private banking come up at finance conferences such as Frankfurt Digital Finance and at the Finance Loop events in the calendar above.