Investment and Private banking Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3250 words

Investment and Private banking - Assignment Example A large market share of the UK banking sector is at the hands of a few banks due to mergers and acquisition. This has made the market less competitive due to reduction in the number of independent private banks. However, UK has been successful for many years as a financial sector with many foreign banks entering the market. Hoare’s bank has defied the above mergers and acquisitions and remains as one of the oldest independent private bank in the UK. It is managed and financed by the descendants of Sir Richard Hoare who was its founder. The bank has been profitable for many years and maintains a relatively small customer base. This has enabled it to specialize in personalized private banking. It has a range of banking services tailored to satisfy individual’s customer needs as well as wealth management. The bank has put up measures to ensure that only trusted and high net worth individuals open accounts at the bank. The bank has also embraced IT to help it improve the efficiency of service delivery. However, it is recommended that the branch should open more branches to add to the current two and thus give access to more customers. It should also improve its IT systems to deter cyber frauds. Introduction In the 1960s, there were eleven English clearing banks and five Scottish banks (Melton 2002). Five decades later, mergers and acquisition have led to the creation of four major players in the UK namely; Barclays, Lloyds Banking Group, Royal Bank of Scotland, and HSBC (Temim & Voth 2013).