Is Northern Ireland the next hotspot for private banking hiring?

A Northern Ireland recruiter tells us Barclays Wealth research has found an untapped market for private bankers to serve clients worth 2m or more. These potential clients are currently being served by “high end” IFAs and intermediaries.

Barclays Wealth, which manages its Northern Ireland clients from Scotland, is now busy recruiting a team to be resident in the province.

Roving relationship managers are the norm in Northern Ireland: Ronan Sheridan at AIB in Belfast says AIB’s First Trust serves clients through a mobile team of relationship managers.

But while he describes private banking as “one of the fastest growing areas within the bank”, he says most jobs are filled internally.

Ken O’Gorman, managing director of Spearhead in Dublin, says big banks like AIB, Northern and Ulster bank operate a banc-assurance model but need to specialise in wealth management offering new and innovative products – particularly equity and derivative products, he says.

In Eire the basic for a private banker with five years’ experience is €60k to €70k a year. But the total package for a wealth manager can be in the region of €200k a year: the bonus reflects the blurring with the IFA market, sometimes comprising “intermediary commission”, with managers earning 30% commission on the business they write.