There have always been rich women, but with female millionaires aged between 18 and 44 now outnumbering male, women are wealthier than ever. Are more female private bankers needed as a result?

Maybe, but maybe not. Catherine Tillotson, head of the research team at wealth management consultancy Scorpio Partnership, tells us banks have woken up to female entrepreneurship and realise this is a market they need to cater for. But, she adds, there’s no evidence that women prefer dealing with women – anecdotally they don’t seem to care.

Nicola Horlick, the doyenne of fund management, got into the game last year with Bramdiva, an asset management company focused on women. The company’s website is a tasteful shade of pink, but five of the key partners are men.

Christian Sulger Buel, chief executive of private banking search firm Sulger Buel and Co., reels off the names of several senior female private bankers, such as Liz Cacciottolo, now CEO of UBS Wealth Management in Sydney, Australia, Caroline Kuhnert, MD UBS Wealth Management London International, and Marianne Hay, CEO for Europe Global Wealth Management at Citigroup.

Sulger Buel tells us their roles are not the least dependent on their dealing specifically with female clientele. But he also says that in the US and UK there is a real concern among private bankers that they need to meet diversity rules requiring them to redress women’s under-representation.

Simon Culliford, a director at Culliford Edmonds Associates, says that although he has never specifically been asked for a female banker to fill a role, there is no doubt that women make excellent relationship managers. “They are certainly not hidden away!”