Richest clients at SEB to be offered new range of services

Bloomberg

SEB AB, one of Sweden’s biggest banks, is planning a new range of services to cater to the growing number of wealthy clients in northern Europe.
The Stockholm-based bank says the list includes personalized advice on investing in art as well as coaching services for the children of the very rich to help them look after the fortunes they inherit from their parents. And for the well-heeled who are also very stressed, SEB is planning a so-called well-being offering, though it didn’t provide details on what that entails.
“These clients are open-minded for attractive services that can make their lives more efficient,” William Paus, head of SEB’s new private wealth management and family office unit, said in an interview.
The Nordic region’s economic strength has already prompted some of the biggest banks to add headcount as they eye a lucrative market that’s bounced back from pandemic faster than most. BNP Paribas is among banks expanding in the Nordic region, citing its “incredible” wealth. Goldman Sachs Group Inc said in April it’s increasing its Nordic headcount by 40% to take a bigger share of asset management and investment banking services.
The spectrum of financial companies keen to get a slice of Scandinavia’s growing wealth spans niche banks with a focus on trading, to US lenders, to global giants redistributing their once London-based bankers after Brexit, Paus says. For SEB, that means stepping up the pace of appealing to the region’s rich.
“The main strategy is to grow and expand this business organically, but if we see a bolt-on that will save us time or fit into the culture, or a partnership that makes good sense, we are open for that,” he said.
The rise in Scandinavian wealth follows years of record low and even negative interest rates, which have driven up asset prices for homeowners and pension holders. Meanwhile, some of the world’s highest tax rates mean the region still boasts greater income equality than most other parts of the world, as citizens enjoy free access to health care and education.
SEB estimates that almost 900,000 of the Nordic region’s 27 million inhabitants are now dollar millionaires. The bank is also targeting clients in Germany, which boasts 2.5 million millionaires. “That’s a lot of
potential clients,” Paus said.

But competition from international banks eager to grow in the Nordics is putting pressure on local rivals like SEB. Part of Paus’s mandate in his new role is to reverse that, which he says will to an extent be achieved by leveraging SEB’s existing presence in corporate and investment banking.
Paus says that family offices “will create a lot of business opportunities in investment banking and as co-owners for startup companies.” The “wealth accumulation is so strong.”
The growing number of rich people has prompted some Nordic politicians to voice concern at the perceived threat the development poses to the region’s history of income equality. Sweden’s finance minister, Magdalena Andersson, has said her country should consider an extra tax on millionaires after years of a widening income gap left the wealthiest Swedes with 60 times more than the average industrial worker.
Meanwhile in Norway, the richest of Scandinavia’s economies, the ultimate expression of wealth arrived just before the pandemic. The Oslo Philanthropic Exchange, created two years ago, links up non-profit organisations with donors eager to offload their wealth to worthy causes.