BPI Private has demonstrated strong momentum, registering a 9% increase in assets under management to €9.5 billion ($10.3 billion). To support this growing portfolio, the bank’s headcount rose 13%, from 110 to 124 professionals, with an ambition to reach 140 by the end of the first quarter of 2025. This strategic recruitment drive has fortified both frontline and support functions, reflecting the firm’s commitment to delivering a comprehensive client experience.

CaixaBank continues to lead by example, combining innovative digital solutions with a strong focus on sustainability and a client-centric approach to manage and grow wealth responsibly.

Santander Private Banking has global leadership in banking for high-net-worth individuals (HNWs) and this is largely driven from Europe – especially Western Europe – where it is the region’s best private bank. Its growth in this region is in large part thanks to an ability to leverage the group’s presence in its key markets while enhancing its value proposition for clients in those markets.

Standard Chartered's private banking business in the UK has seen notable growth and strategic developments over the past year.

Santander Private Banking, Uruguay's Best International Private Bank

With a commitment to excellence, innovation and client-centric wealth management, Credicorp Capital continues to demonstrate outstanding market leadership, bespoke financial solutions, and dedication to building lasting client relationships.

BTG Pactual's relentless pursuit of excellence and innovation and its client-centric approach solidify its position as Brazil's best private bank. This recognition celebrates the bank's leadership in wealth management and its dedication to empowering clients to achieve their financial aspirations.

This award is always fiercely contested, and for good reason. Every private bank targets high-net-worth customers. Many of them are tomorrow’s ultra-wealthy customers; a handful will be tomorrow’s billionaires, monied enough to support their own multi-functional family office.

Davivienda’s dedication to resilience, innovation and sustainability over the review period ensures it remains the leading Colombian private bank. By integrating cutting-edge digital solutions with robust environmental and social initiatives, Davivienda is shaping a more prosperous, inclusive and green future for Colombia.

LarrainVial’s strong growth, innovative solutions and unwavering client focus make it a deserving recipient of the award for best private bank in Chile. The bank has solidified its reputation as one of Chile’s most prominent and innovative financial services firms, providing comprehensive investment solutions to clients.

Santander Private Banking stands head and shoulders above the competition in this award for Latin America’s best international private bank. The Spanish financial institution is not only a colossus in Latin America, but also a powerhouse in key markets in other regions, including Europe and North America. More recently, it opened a new branch in the Dubai International Financial Centre, giving its Latin America-based private banking clients access to another fast-growing region.

Santander Private Banking demonstrated its commitment to service and to the continued development of comprehensive financial solutions for customers during the review period. As a prominent division of Banco Santander, it has established itself as the largest private banking institution in Argentina, catering to the unique needs of wealthy individuals, entrepreneurs and families. The bank leverages its global expertise while adapting to the specific dynamics of the domestic market, providing access to sophisticated financial instruments and strategies designed to maximise returns on client wealth.

It can be easy, amid the competitive scrum of wealth management, to overlook the importance of discretionary portfolio management (DPM). Investing money on a client’s behalf: it’s a simple enough concept. It is also profitable and ‘sticky’ – get it right, and a wealthy client is likely to stay loyal for a long time, safe in the knowledge that their wealth and assets are busy accruing interest.

Leveraging innovative digital services to connect with its clients, mBank achieved a significant increase in assets under management during the review period, with new inflows exceeding PLN1 billion ($258 million).

Santander Private Banking is a colossus in Latin America, where it won three regional awards this year – best international private bank, best for high-net-worth individuals and best for discretionary portfolio management. We also named it the best international private bank in Uruguay, Peru, Mexico, Argentina, and Brazil.

Banco Santander has seen the expansion and success of its FX business extend into Argentina over the review period. Significant developments include its developing non-deliverable forwards (NDF) currency solutions, enabling clients to trade Latam currencies offshore while maintaining onshore delivery. This expansion is driven by growing trade corridors between Asia and Latam and currency rebalancing trends.

Banco Santander's Latam FX product offering has evolved over the review period, driven by strategic investment and a focus on meeting its client needs. Key developments include expanding the global volatility product to Latin America, particularly Brazil and Mexico, integrating local expertise with global pricing and risk management. This has enabled the launch of new currency options and expanded Latam crosses, offering clients tailored hedging solutions with improved pricing and risk management.

In 2023 and 2024, Banco Santander Chile enhanced its FX ecosystem to improve client experience from account opening to transaction completion. Key developments included launching several platforms: a new single-dealer platform with immediate settlement and robust security; an international transfer platform for easy, secure Swift transfers; and a 100% digital platform for individual transfers across Latam, the US and Europe. Additionally, the bank’s Más Lucas initiative offers basic accounts for unbanked and underbanked persons, and new digital foreign currency accounts (JPY, CNH, GBP, EUR, USD) enable retail and CIB customers to manage FX positions efficiently, supported by digital and voice services.

Banco Santander expanded its global infrastructure-based FX eBooks to Latin America during the review period, efficiently utilizing liquidity across regions and optimizing pricing for clients.

Political instability in France, coupled with better EU-UK relations, could threaten Paris’ ability to rival London as a financial centre. But a focus on institutional clients among French and other EU banks is already helping London’s resilience – a trend that shows little sign of abating.

Most banks focus their corporate responsibility agendas on environmental, social and governance metrics and the drive to net zero, as well as on diversity and inclusion in terms of their customers and their own workforces. Banco Santander, western Europe’s best bank for corporate responsibility, has for many years looked beyond these core aspects of responsibility and found other ways to contribute to society.

Even its rivals in Spain admit to feeling the impact last year as CaixaBank moved on from integrating Bankia to concentrating more exclusively on developing its business organically. This is evident, for example, in the savings market, where its customer funds increased by 3.1% in 2023. In insurance, a vital part of the group’s activities, there was also healthy growth, with a 7% volume growth in general and life risk premiums.

While one of the smaller banking markets in Latin America, Uruguay has some excellent banks that generate some exceptionally strong financial results. Part of that success is due to a consistently strong economic backdrop – and in 2023 significantly higher interest rates also helped. However, individual management teams can also take a large part of the credit and this year Banco Santander’s chief executive Gustavo Trelles repeats his success of last year by retaining the award for Uruguay’s best bank.

Banco Santander’s wealth management proposition has been resonating in Latin America in recent years. It has been one of the big engines of growth for Santander’s wealth management and insurance division in 2023, which contributed €3.3 billion in profit to the group, up 21% year on year. The bank’s strong regional footprint – as well as its presence in the US and Europe – gives it a perfect competitive proposition for wealthy Latin Americans, who are increasingly interested in diversifying their portfolio into international assets and currencies.

Banco Santander CIB’s steady progress in Brazil – by far Latin America’s biggest market for financing – coincided with a greater emphasis on local markets financing in 2023. The bank’s sweet spot, straddling local and international debt capital markets, as well as loan financing, meant that it had a very strong year across various debt segments. According to Dealogic, Santander CIB – which is led in the region by Rafael Noya, global head of global debt financing – was the leading underwriter of domestic DCM throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, helped by a second place in Brazil, where it took a 9% share of local issuance. Santander’s local strength was also supported by a strong showing in international DCM.

New accounts targeted at low-income customers reflects the reality of intense competition in the sector.

BBVA could have bought Banco Sabadell much more cheaply in 2020. Sabadell’s CEO César González-Bueno has since turned his bank around. But BBVA’s return to the negotiating table comes at a time when European banking may be moving to a new and more confident phase.

Intesa Sanpaolo’s Isybank is the latest in-house neobank to run into trouble. But the desire to migrate core-banking systems onto the cloud is still encouraging other banks to follow this strategy.

As banks retreat to their home markets, they must find reliable partners to serve corporate customers overseas or risk losing them.

The good news is that bank executives don’t see big loan losses ahead; the bad news is that they lack the confidence and vision to invest in the business.