A summary of the main banks' financial results for the first quarter of this year as they relate to wealth management and private banking.

Below is a summary of the results from a range of the major banking groups and some other financial actors around the world. The results focus on the largest institutions which provide wealth management. Not all banks report on a calendar year schedule, and not all the institutions are alike, so the results from standalone institutions should be viewed differently from wealth management results embedded within a larger group. These results may be subsequently revised. Not all the banks reported on the same day. We hope readers find it useful to see these figures collated in one article.

Note: Where non-US banks are mentioned, the currency sums in which they report haven't been converted into dollars, since the exchange rate may have changed since the time of the original report. 

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JP Morgan
Within wealth and asset management, net income dipped 6 per cent year-on-year to $1.29 billion; net revenue rose 7 per cent to $5.109 billion, and noninterest costs rose 12 per cent to $3.46 billion. There was a net benefit of $57 million – reflecting a net reserve release – contrasting with a provision for credit losses of $28 million in Q1 2023. Assets under management stood at $3.6 trillion, up 19 per cent; client assets rose 20 per cent to $5.2 trillion, driven by higher markets and inflows of client money.

Goldman Sachs 
The Wall Street firm became the latest major US financial group to report first-quarter 2024 figures, and results for the wealth management arm were broadly positive. At the group level, pre-tax earnings and revenues rose. The asset and wealth management arm of Goldman Sachs reported a 43 per cent year-on-year jump in first-quarter 2024 pre-tax earnings, coming in at $877 million.

Wealth management fees rose 7 per cent to $1.339 billion; asset management fees rose 8 per cent to $1.113 billion. Incentive fees surged 66 per cent to $88 million, while private banking and lending net revenues jumped 93 per cent to $682 million. The effect was magnified by the sale last year of the Marcus loans portfolio. Equity investments net revenues rose 87 per cent to $222 million; with debt investments, revenues fell 15 per cent to $345 million. Across the whole of the wealth and asset management arm, net revenues rose 18 per cent to $3.789 billion.

Operating expenses at this business division fell 7 per cent on a year ago to $2.934 billion. The division’s return on average common equity rose 4.2 percentage points to 9.9 per cent. The wealth management side of the division had client assets of about $1.5 trillion at the end of the quarter. Across the whole division, assets under supervision stood at $2.848 trillion, up from $2.672 trillion.

Wells Fargo 
Within wealth management results, which include its private banking arm and advisors to ultra-high net worth individuals, it reported a 17 per cent year-on-year drop in net income, coming in at $381 million; total revenue rose 2 per cent; noninterest costs rose 6 per cent. Provision for credit losses fell. Total client assets rose 13 per cent from a year earlier to $2.186 trillion. Noninterest income rose 9 per cent, benefiting from higher asset-based fees. Wells Fargo said its fall in net interest income was caused by lower deposit balances because clients moved cash into higher-yielding alternatives.

Citigroup
The private bank logged $571 million in revenues for Q1 2024, rising 1 per cent; when Citigold and Wealth at Work business units are added, total revenue in wealth stood at $1.7 billion, dipping 4 per cent. Net income in the wealth business fell 6 per cent year-on-year to $150 million. Private bank revenues’ gain was primarily driven by improved deposit spreads and investment fee revenues, partially offset by higher mortgage funding costs. The wealth arm had estimated client investment assets under management, trust, and custody assets of $515 billion, rising 12 per cent on a year before.

Bank of America
At a record figure of $5.59 billion, Q1 2024 total wealth management revenue rose from $5.315 billion a year before; pre-tax income rose to $1.34 billion from $1.223 billion. Net income rose to just over $1.0 billion from $917 million. 

At the private bank, AuM balances were $380 billion, and the firm logged about 865 net new relationships. Across the whole of the wealth business, there were $25 billion of flows into the business, and total client balances rose 13 per cent, to almost $4 trillion.

The wealth business had a pre-tax margin of 24 per cent, down slightly from the end of the year but up from 23 per cent a year earlier.

Morgan Stanley
Wealth management net revenues in Q1 2024 rose to $6.88 billion from $6.559 billion; fee-based assets rose to $2.124 trillion at the end of March, up from $1.769 billion, and there were $26.2 billion of fee-based asset flows, rising from $22.4 billion a year before. The firm’s net new assets decelerated slightly, to $94.9 billion from $109.6 billion. The wealth business reported a pre-tax margin of 26.3 per cent for the quarter. Pre-tax income was $1.8 billion.

BNY Mellon
The US firm said that in its market and wealth services segment, total pre-tax income dipped 2 per cent year-on-year to $678 million in Q1 2024, while total revenues rose 3 per cent to $1.517 billion. Within the Pershing business, revenues rose 3 per cent to $670 million. 

In the investment and wealth business, pre-tax income rose 15 per cent to $107 million; total fee and other revenue rose 3 per cent to $805 million. Assets under management rose 6 per cent on a year earlier to $2.015 trillion at the end of March. Wealth management client assets rose 11 per cent to $309 billion.

Northern Trust
The Chicago-headquartered firm’s net income fell 36 per cent in Q1 2024 to $214.7 million, affected by a provision for credit losses, and fall in total revenue (-6 per cent on a year earlier) to $1.654 billion. Noninterest expenses rose 6 per cent to $1.364 billion.

UBS
The global wealth management division reported an underlying pre-tax profit for the first quarter of $1.272 billion, surging from $624 million in the fourth quarter of 2023. The result, announced a year after UBS’s acquisition of Credit Suisse, was on the back of a rise in total underlying revenue to $5.9 billion from $5.4 billion in the previous quarter. On a reported basis, pre-tax profit – including the impact of the Credit Suisse acquisition – was $1.102 billion, and total revenues were $6.143 billion in Q1.

Julius Baer
The bank reported that its assets under management rose 10 per cent year-on-year to SFr471 million in the first four months of 2024. The increase was caused by a “significant positive currency impact and by strong stock markets, only partly offset by a decline in bond market valuations.” After a weaker start in January, net inflows improved significantly in the following three months. The bank’s Common Equity Tier 1 capital ratio – its “shock absorber” measure – was 15.3 per cent at the end of April.

Deutsche Bank
The bank reported that its pre-tax profit for the first three months of 2024 rose 10 per cent year-on-year to €2.0 billion, while net profit also rose 10 per cent to €1.5 billion.  

On the private banking side, net revenues slipped 2 per cent year-on-year to €2.4 billion, because slightly lower net interest income was partly offset by growth in investment products. Revenues fell 4 per cent, reflecting higher hedging and funding costs, including the effect of the ending of minimum reserve remuneration.

Revenues in wealth management and private banking held stable as lower deposit revenues were countered by growth in lending and higher revenues from investment products. Total assets under management reached €606 billion, rising €27 billion, helped by €12 billion in net inflows – the highest amount in 12 quarters.

HSBC
On a reported basis, the bank logged a first-quarter pre-tax profit of $12.65 billion, down from $12.886 billion a year earlier. Diluted earnings per share rose to $0.54 per share from $0.52 per share. Its net interest margin slipped to 1.63 per cent from 1.69 per cent. 

The bank’s Common Equity Tier 1 ratio – a standard measure of a lender’s capital buffer – stood at 15.2 per cent at the end of March this year, up from 14.7 per cent at the end of March 2023.

In the wealth and personal banking segment, which includes HSBC’s private bank, revenues fell to $7.164 billion from $9.013 billion. Pre-tax profit, on a constant currency basis, fell to $3.181 billion from $5.324 billion. The profit drop was caused by the non-recurrence of a $2.0 billion reversal in Q1 2023 of an impairment relating to the planned sale of HSBC’s retail banking operations in France, although it was subsequently reinstated in the fourth quarter of 2023. Global private banking revenue was $100 million, rising 16 per cent on a year earlier.

EFG
The private bank reported that its net profit for the first four months of 2024 exceeded SFr110 million, against SFr303.2 million for the whole of 2023, while its net new assets totalled SFr3.6 billion, equating to an annualised growth rate of 7.6 per cent. The net new money figure is above the firm’s target range of 4 to 6 per cent. The inflow was driven by a “strong contribution” from new relationship managers. 

Assets under management totalled SFr157.5 billion at end-April 2024, rising by 11 per cent from the end of 2023, driven by strong net new assets, positive foreign exchange impacts as well as favourable market performance.

Barclays
The lender said its private bank and wealth arm made a pre-tax profit of £95 million, down 15 per cent on a year earlier; net interest income was £175 million, down 3 per cent; net fee, commission and other income was £137 million, surging by 76 per cent. This part of the bank saw growth in client balances of about £48 billion, mostly in invested assets.

Lloyds 
The bank's wealth business had total customer deposits in its wealth arm of £10.2 billion, down from £12.9 billion, slipping 21 per cent from a year ago. At group level, statutory after-tax profit stood at £1.2 billion, down from £1.6 billion a year before, affected by rising operating costs. Underlying net interest income fell 10 per cent year-on-year to £3.2 billion, with a lower banking net interest margin, as expected, of 2.95 per cent.

Coutts (NatWest Group)
The private banking division of NatWest Group, principally comprising Coutts, reported a slide in operating profit to £33 million in the first three months of the year from £133 million in the same quarter in 2023. Weaker deposit balances and clients shifting to higher-return products, along with weaker lending, took a toll on the bottom line.

Standard Chartered
It reported a first-quarter 2024 pre-tax profit, on an underlying basis, of $729 million at its wealth and retail banking side, a rise of 8 per cent on a year earlier. Across the entire Standard Chartered group, underlying pre-tax profit surged 25 per cent in Q1 2024, reaching $2.129 billion. Income in the wealth and retail banking side rose 10 per cent from active pass-through management in deposits and continued strong momentum in wealth solutions. This effect was partly offset by lower mortgage income. At the bank’s Wealth Solutions business, operating income rose 23 per cent on a common currency basis.

DBS
Net profit for first-quarter 2024 rose by 15 per cent from a year ago to a record S$2.96 billion while return on equity reached 19.4 per cent. Total income grew by 13 per cent to a new high of S$45.56 billion as net interest margin was stable at 2.14 per cent, fee income crossed S$1 billion for the first time and treasury customer sales reached a record.

Net fee income grew by 23 per cent. The growth was led by a 47 per cent surge in wealth management fees from stronger market sentiment and an increase in assets under management, DBS said.

UOB
The group reported a 6 per cent quarter-on-quarter rise in core operating profit for the first three months of this year, at S$2 billion. However, the sum represented a 2 per cent slip from a year ago. Net fee income in Q1 rose 5 per cent to $580 million; total expenses rose 2 per cent to $1.475 billion. Allowances for credit and other losses rose to S$163 million, up 4 per cent year-on-year. The rise in net fee income was driven by good loan-related fees and pickup in wealth as investor confidence returned.

OCBC (and Bank of Singapore)
The bank said it made a first-quarter net profit of S$1.98 billion, rising 5 per cent on the same period of 2023; total net interest income rose 4 per cent to S$2.4 billion; non-interest income rose 17 per cent to S$1.19 billion. Operating expenses were up 8 per cent and credit costs rose 4 basis points to 16bps. Wealth management income was a record S$1.29 billion.

Emirates NBD
The UAE-headquartered bank’s profit surged 67 per cent quarter-on-quarter to a record AED6.7 billion in the first quarter of 2024, also up 12 per cent on a year earlier, helped by regional growth, increased transaction volumes, a low-cost funding base and substantial impaired loan recoveries.