This week’s poll — one tap

Good morning. The ledger passed sixty this week, three Greater China seats in Singapore changed hands or fell vacant inside nine days, and a Singapore-based external asset manager said out loud what every market head knows and few print: “the main KPIs for bankers are AUM and revenue.” That line, from Lighthouse Canton’s head of strategic growth in an interview published on Thursday, is the operator’s week in one sentence. The seats below were filled, or emptied, by people who are measured exactly that way. Five minutes.

THE WEEK IN HIRING

Patterns by market

SWITZERLAND Banque Heritage named Agnès Krafft head of investment solutions, from Edmond de Rothschild Asset Management in Geneva, where she was an analyst and portfolio manager and chaired the group pension fund’s investment committee from 2021 to 2024. Research, fund, equity and bond selection sit under her. On Monday Julius Baer announced a group CHRO from Reckitt, starting 11 January; that is the first outside-sector entry in the new ledger column introduced below. Four Swiss houses have now made senior people announcements this autumn — Julius Baer, Syz, J. Safra Sarasin, Banque Heritage. Strategy statements: still none. This is week ten of the silence. UBS presents third-quarter results next week, the first large Swiss reporting event of the season; most of the private banks report in detail only at the half-year.

SINGAPORE Three Greater China coverage seats moved in nine days, all Singapore-based. Standard Chartered Private Bank hired Vincent Chan from Bank of Singapore as market head, Greater China (13 October, confirmed by the bank). Bank of Singapore’s managing director and market head for Greater China and North Asia, Keeve Tan, has resigned, according to sources cited by Asian Private Banker; the bank declined to comment (21 October). Standard Chartered Private Bank’s managing director and Greater China team lead, Eric Chan, is leaving, reportedly for UBS; Asian Private Banker says it is still verifying the destination and the bank had not commented at publication (22 October). Separately, Bank of Singapore unveiled a sustainability advisory team, Sustainability Partners, inside its chief investment office, led by Christine Cheong, who moves from ESG methodology and fund selection within the same office. Three pillars: investments, businesses, multi-generational stewardship. A created seat, filled internally. We log the seats. We do not know the reasons behind the two departures and will not guess at them.

HONG KONG Bank of Singapore hired Wendy Lai from Standard Chartered Private Bank as team head, lending advisory solutions, in its Hong Kong lending team; the bank confirmed the appointment. Two decades in the industry. And HSBC’s Sami Abouzahr leaves Hong Kong for the UAE to run International Wealth and Premier Banking for the Middle East, effective immediately, which vacates a Hong Kong investments and managed solutions chair that has not yet been publicly refilled.

THE GULF The HSBC appointment stands as the week’s flagship move into the region: a product-and-solutions head given a regional P&L, with the release citing US$83bn of MENAT wealth assets at end-2025 and a Qatar wealth centre due in 2026. Lighthouse Canton’s Charlene Lin, interviewed on Thursday, said Dubai clients are not leaving despite regional tensions and many want to deepen business investment there. Our November call on flagship programme announcements attached to investment numbers is unchanged; one seat came early, the programmes have not.

UK The Autumn Budget is confirmed for Wednesday 28 October. Monday’s edition is the last before it. The Financial Times reported on 16 October, via unnamed sources, that the previous Chancellor had courted UBS over moving its headquarters and listing to London should it ever leave Switzerland; UBS has said it intends to operate from Switzerland. No bank has yet named a UK-international or British-diaspora coverage seat since our 23 September call. The forcing date is next week.

THAILAND WRISE, the Singapore-headquartered external asset manager, is buying 20% of IFCG, a Bangkok advisory firm with more than 400 advisers, completion expected in the fourth quarter subject to approvals. Not a seat; a distribution deal. It belongs here because the route into Thai wealth this autumn runs through adviser networks rather than bankers, and IFCG intends to explore WRISE’s adviser operating system after closing.

THE LEDGER

Sixty-four, and a third column

Five moves logged this week take the ledger to 64 senior moves since 24 August: 42 structural or platform against 22 classic coverage. That is 66%, two in three, and the ratio has now held through eleven counts. Created seats rise to 13 with Bank of Singapore’s Sustainability Partners. The second-round column stays at zero; the first cohort opened on 12 October and the next start date is 2 November. Two of this week’s five entries — the Singapore departures — are logged on Asian Private Banker’s sourcing without confirmation from either bank. They are marked as such and will be corrected if the record changes.

From today the ledger carries a third column, promised in Wednesday’s essay: route in. Did the person arrive through a coverage book, a platform job (investments, solutions, lending, advisory, sustainability), or from outside the sector? We open it with the fortnight’s twelve moves, 13 to 22 October: seven through platform, four through coverage, one from outside the sector. The back-book of 52 earlier moves is coded during November and the first full reading runs on the last Friday of the month. A sample of twelve proves nothing; it does tell you which way we are looking.

ONE NUMBER

The readiness gap

Julius Baer’s Family Barometer 2026, its sixth and the first produced with EY Switzerland, draws on more than 700 financial professionals. Of ultra-high-net-worth business owners, 2.3% are considered fully ready for a sale or a transfer within the family; 29.5% are not ready; 56.3% are somewhat prepared. Only 22.6% of the next generation are judged ready to take over. The blocker is not tax or structure: 80% cited a lack of family alignment on a sale, and 60.6% put emotional attachment at the root of the misalignment. After an exit, 79.4% say preserving joint family wealth is the first priority.

Read 2.3% as a market, not a survey result. Nearly every founder-client on your book has an unsolved transaction sitting in the family, and the barometer says the obstacle is alignment, which no product solves. Look at where this autumn’s created seats went: a stewardship pillar inside a chief investment office this week, a six-week next-generation programme with a business school last week, a head of family and philanthropy advisory for Asia in September. Banks are building the advisory bench for the 97.7%. The operator’s question is whether that bench is measured on anything other than the two KPIs Lighthouse Canton named on Thursday. Interpretation, ours; the barometer is a professionals’ survey, not a client census.

THE POLL

Your verdict: grade the Swiss call

Last Friday we asked you to grade the standing call that the first major Swiss strategy statement triggers the rest inside a fortnight. ⟨X⟩ of you voted. ⟨Y⟩% said yes, a cascade. ⟨Z⟩% said no, a trickle. ⟨W⟩% said no, at least one house will not publish at all. ⟨one-line reading⟩. The call stays on the record and will be graded against the outcome in December, alongside your vote.

This week’s poll — one tap

Your market head’s seat: which route did its current holder take into it?

Coverage — came up through a book · Platform — investments, solutions, lending or advisory · Outside the sector · Don’t know

Results next Friday, set against the ledger’s own route-in column.

WATCHING NEXT WEEK

Four dates

UBS third-quarter results, the first large Swiss reporting event of the autumn; we will read the commentary for anything that counts as a strategy statement, and say if there is nothing. The UK Budget on Wednesday 28 October, and whether any house names a UK-international seat in the days either side of it. Confirmation or correction on the two Singapore departures, which we will carry whichever way they fall. And 2 November, when the second cohort of senior starts opens and the second-round clock begins for them.

PRIVATE BANKING LIFE | privatebankinglife.com

Private Banking Life is written and published by Steve Slater, founder of an executive search practice in private banking. It is compiled entirely from public sources. Nothing learned through search work — from clients or candidates — ever appears in this publication.

Sources this edition: Asian Private Banker (20, 21, 22 Oct 2026); Global Private Banker (20, 21, 22 Oct 2026); finews.com (16, 20, 22 Oct 2026); HSBC press release via Zawya (20 Oct 2026); Caproasia (19 Oct 2026); Julius Baer Family Barometer 2026 as reported by Global Private Banker (20 Oct 2026); HM Treasury Autumn Budget date as reported by CIPP; Private Banking Life ledger, 24 Aug to 22 Oct 2026.