Most people here are more interested in premium card offerings rather than in the backend operational structures of too-big-to-fail banks. There have been interesting developments in both as UBS/CS continues their integration efforts.
First, American Express will buy Swisscard from UBS. Amex probably has big plans for the division, and it could effectively turn into the new main booking centre for servicing global HNW customers in the same way the Brighton operation used to be before Brexit hit and they stopped taking new clients. Swisscard has already started issuing Platinum & Centurion cards in USD/EUR/GBP and the rational thing to do is transfer ICC over to Swisscard. Visa/Master companion cards will also be kept - I definitely did not have Amex issuing Visa cards on my bingo card before the US credit card competition bill accidentally got passed as a budget amendment appendix.
On the regulatory side - looks like UBS is planning some logistically challenging cross-ring-fence clients yeeting in both directions.
Ex-Credit Suisse UK wealth management clients will have their cash and assets under custody transferred from the UK ring-fenced bank Credit Suisse (UK) Limited into UBS AG under a High Court sanctioned transfer scheme. However, Lombard loans and derivatives agreements will need to be resigned. Their documentation team would be extremely busy – I wouldn’t be surprised if they try to offboard some trading relationships, given UBS London rarely had any direct access clients while CSUK dished those out like candy.
The inverse is happening in Zurich. All former CS private banking customers will have their relationship thrown into the Swiss ring-fenced bank irrespective of their country of residence.
CS originally placed their wealth management customers in the main Credit Suisse AG rather than Credit Suisse Switzerland. Eventually, some accounts were allowed to be opened in CS Switzerland, but they never winded down the book at the parent bank.
In contrast, virtually all of UBS’ Swiss operations fall under the ring-fenced UBS Switzerland AG. The main bank, UBS AG, was effectively headquartered in London despite being domiciled in Basel and Zurich - this was evident in UBS’s loss absorption agreement with the Swiss government when they outright left their Broadgate office as the address to service notice
In the US the AMEX Platinum and the AMEX Centurion is not a special card anymore. Everyone has got the Platinum now and the Centurion isn’t that special because loads of Businesses give them out.
Around Washington I would see a couple Platinum Cards and a Centurion daily.
The cards in the US that get looks are:
CitiBank Private Client - $5 Million Net Worth Needed
JP Morgan Wealth Management - $10 Million Net Worth Needed
Goldman Sachs - $10 Million Investment Needed with Goldman itself.
Morgan Stanley Wealth Management - $2 Million Net Worth Needed.
I do think that the Private Banking sector in the UK has a lot more character then the US does. Some of the Private Bank branches and buildings are beautiful and the service they offer from my research is much better then the US.
I know that their is a Coutts Branch here in Bristol so maybe might see a Coutts card. Doubt it though
There are probably more than 20,000 Centurion cards in London alone, so nothing rare at all. It is still unique in its business model and being a card wealthy customer can actually use balancing risk management and flexible underwriting.
Private banks make a lot more in revenue but just neglect their CC products. The most Amex could ever hope to make is maybe 15–20k in travel booking commission besides the annual fee (interchange really isn’t that much especially in Europe) but they do a far better job.
JPM Reserve famously declines left and right in Europe - they eventually start referring international clients booked in the US private bank & securities division to Amex but decided against it for the US resident because keeping the JPM reserve around is good marketing for the bank (turning rich people into walking billboard by giving them fancy but useless cards). UBS wants you to pledge your account before giving you any credit cards and you have to jump through hoops to get AF waived. Coutts was refreshing at first with flexible underwriting and no frills fee free proposition (plus a not mad concierge) but lately they are slowly giving up after presumably losing money from the heavy users but not getting travel commissions back.
Other than JPM - all of the other will just refer their richest clients to Centurion. MS/GS has co branded Amex plat for the lower segment but Cent is still general the go to in the Ultra side. MS has debit cards as well. Citi Private Bank does not have credit/debit cards at all.
The minimums are generally not that useful. Assuming you never worked with a private bank before and they need to start from scratch with KYC/AML, most of these will decide that the account is not worth it if you are barely meeting the Aum. On the flip side, if you have 3/4 banks already and are familiar with the process, some of the names you mentioned will go a lot lower as long as they are making money.
The extreme example is JPM Private Bank. The London office usually only considers relationships with either with trading focus at 25mm+ Aum or discretionary mandates from 10-15mm. But the US offices via the global families division will open accounts for basically anyone with another UK/Swiss private bank and might one day look for a US mortgage.
Citi Private Bank in the US and Goldman outside of Asia will also go a lot smaller since they just lacks the scale in those markets.
They do care about net worth most of the time cos you need to be a qualified purchaser and an eligible contract participant (both are US regulations that apply globally) to get anything meaningful out of the accounts. But the thresholds are fairly low.
A simpler way to put it is that if you are a UBS general counsel, you have the best job security on the street with the sea of paperwork they are churning out. Not so much if you are a banker. How they restructure their subsidiaries will have a long-term impact on products, so the stakes are high.
If they screw it up they will probably end up like HSBC with endless restructuring and transfer schemes between different group entities.
