Klaus Diederichs has spent his entire career working at JPMorgan. When he started there in 1980, the firm was an afterthought in European investment banking.

Extended Private banking and wealth management survey results

As banks retreat from non-core markets, domestic players are left to dominate in their countries, yet global expertise is more desired than ever.

View the results now.

How can private banking CIOs cement their positions as key drivers of the wealth management business? And to what extent are they able to differentiate their strategies to clients? Euromoney attempts to shine some light on these challenges by asking the chief investment officers of five of the world’s biggest wealth managers for their views on how to beat the market in 2014 and beyond. Their responses suggest that differentiation will come at the margins, at best.

In the past year the country’s private bank clients have been persuaded of the need to diversify into global investments – not as a panic measure in a time of crisis but as a regular aspect of their allocations.

Offshore secret bank accounts are out and onshore wealth management is in as the world’s private banks are forced to adapt to higher costs and lower revenues. But will it lead to a homogeneous industry?

Meet the new stars of private banking: the global chief investment officers. Wealth managers know they have to provide more to clients than a safe place to deposit money and a close relationship with families and individuals. They are moving to an asset-management-based approach, and CIOs are key to the strategy. But can a house view really increase profits and win over clients?

Private banks are in danger of losing a grip on what makes them attractive to the wealthy

It is not the only offshore centre, but it is the biggest. As the private banking industry moves to an onshore model, what now for the country?

After the World Islamic Economic Forum was held in a Muslim minority country – the UK – for the first time. Euromoney quizzed the envoys of rival centres on their ambitions.

The region is seen as the growth engine for private banks, but it is not without its trials.

Euromoney asks the CEOs of eight of Asia’s leading private banks for their thoughts on where clients in their region will invest this year.

The question I would want to know, were I a Euromoney reader, is: what is really going on out there? Is the world healing? Has it healed? Or indeed, has the world healed so completely that we are now about to suffer another bout of illness?

Lenders struggle with bad debts; Private banks form a niche

Strength of economic recovery exaggerated; Necessary reforms in Brazil are lacking

The financial landscape is changing and certain macro themes are beginning to emerge.

The hedge fund industry is coming off another year of substantial underperformance to market benchmarks in bizarrely rude health. Total assets in the industry rose to $2.01 trillion in December to set a new record total above the previous peak of $1.95 trillion in June 2008, according to data firm Eurekahedge. Other monitors put the current total as high as $2.41 trillion.

Petrobras deal shows swap advantage over dollars; Room for more quality issuers but a limited window

Stock analysts have long been mocked for their fawning attitude towards bank CEOs and CFOs on earnings calls. The phrase ‘great quarter, guys’ as an opening gambit became such a cliché that most analysts eventually toned down their approach, and some – led by self-appointed scourge of Wall Street Mike Mayo – have even started showing open scepticism about the corporate bromides delivered by bank executives.

Against this confusing backdrop, life goes on. A friend who is a senior banker in Asia reports that during a brief visit to London he arranged to meet one of his best clients, an Indian tycoon, at Claridge’s Hotel for tea. Suddenly, the wife of the tycoon jumped up and started embracing what appeared to be an elderly gentleman. "How are you?" she exclaimed. "What are you doing now? We’ve missed you."

Regulators and litigators have become latter-day big-game hunters. That spells trouble for the world’s biggest corporations and should encourage investors to look beyond mega-caps.

New funds to track both A50 and CSI300 indices; Ucits compliance opens funds to European buyers

Expected boom seems to be already priced in; Private companies’ positions still uncertain

CEO’s endorsement big boost to the City; renminbi bond issuance globally at record levels.

New borrowing for festival costs; $22 billion due 2014, says IMF

A more optimistic picture of the eurozone economy is clouded by deflationary pressures, which are especially perilous in Greece. There is no easy fix, but a cheaper euro would help.

"I never thought for a minute I’d get more of an adrenalin rush from working in regulation than I did on a trading desk"

On a cold Monday night in the UK in January, Euromoney sat down to watch a Channel 4 programme from its Dispatches current affairs series.