Wealth Management and Banking Strategy

Are you a Ford bank or a Ferrari bank?

In the early 1960s, looking to motorsport to boost the ailing Ford brand and attract younger buyers, Henry Ford II tried to acquire the legendary Italian brand Ferrari. Spurned by Ferrari, Ford backed the development of the Ford GT40 in partnership with Carroll Shelby, entered the famed Le Mans endurance race, and demonstrated that blue-collar American muscle could outrun European aristocracy. Financial research firm Autonomous uses the Ford v Ferrari story (which was made into a feature film in 2020) to illustrate the changes happening in global wealth management.

A recent change in legislation in China means that individuals now qualify as ‘investors’ and fall under the same rules as those covering firms that invest for Chinese clients outside the country. Analysts think that this will complicate the movement of Chinese money to Hong Kong, boosting the appeal of Singapore as a destination for Chinese money. “Singapore banks’ wealth-management model also encompasses the so-called ‘mass affluent’ group of clients with net worth from $100,000 up to the multi-millionaire level, said Autonomous, which dubs this the ‘Ford’ approach,” writes Bloomberg. “The other end of the spectrum is the ‘Ferrari’ model, exemplified by the likes of UBS Group AG and JPMorgan Chase & Co., which emphasizes those with $30 million and above. Already this year, share prices of the three Singapore lenders have all climbed to records. ‘The Fords have grown faster and moved up the league tables despite the Ferraris’ stronger ultra-high net worth franchises,’ Autonomous said, noting the higher profitability and scalability for banks in the less glamorous bucket. ‘The conclusion is not that Ferraris are broken,’ said Autonomous. ‘It is that Singapore’s Fords are better positioned for the cleaner, more banked and more compliance-heavy growth lane now emerging in Asian wealth’.”

The World Cup of Advertising

The 2026 World Cup is the biggest sporting event in history. Now expanded to 48 teams, that means that one in four of the 195 countries in the world is represented. The Cup showcases not only the best football teams in the world but also the biggest advertisers, if not necessarily the biggest companies. Along with global giant such as Visa and Bank of America, we see non-consumer facing brands such as Aramco, the Saudi national oil company, and relatively new advertisers such as Kraken (the US crypto exchange that now has a US bank charter).

World Cup viewers will have also noticed ads for Kalshi, one of the two major new prediction businesses alongside Polymarket, on the hoardings. This year’s world cup is set to be the biggest gambling event in history, with $50 billion switching hands. The days of flying or driving to Las Vegas to bet are long over. At peak gambling time, word is emerging that Meta is about to enter the market with a business dubbed Arena. NPR reports that Mark Zuckerberg met Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour last year with a view to acquiring the business, and that Meta is now planning to go it alone. With Meta having a userbase of three billion people, Zuckerberg surely saw potential for getting in on the ground floor of the soaring prediction market.

Early reports suggest that ‘Arena’ will operate initially with tokens rather than real money, and that AI will be a big part of the business model. “The massive influx of users into prediction markets makes the space an obvious target for Zuckerberg, according to Tim Wu, a Columbia University law professor who advised the Biden White House on tech policy. ‘Meta seems to clutch at every shiny object,’ Wu said. ‘With the help of their advertising cash cow, they've been able to fail again and again without consequence,’ he said, citing Meta's pullback from the so-called ‘metaverse’ and the abandonment of its cryptocurrency project, Libra. ‘I can't imagine a casino app with fake money is going to be much of a thrill,’ he said. ‘But maybe it's something my children would like, I don't know’.” Many suspect that Meta will eventually return to creating a digital currency of some sorts.

Revolut brings its new hires into the office

Revolut’s working conditions famously include the ability to work from anywhere for up to four months a year. But now the bank is moving to bring new hires into the office three days a week as it recognises the importance of in-person interaction for new staffers. “The partial retreat from its ‘remote-first’ approach will bring Revolut more in line with traditional financial institutions, many of which have tightened office attendance mandates since the pandemic despite resistance from some staff,” writes the FT. “Until now, graduates at Revolut could choose whether to work from home, the office or abroad, in line with the company’s standard policy.

Revolut chief executive Nik Storonsky told employees last year that the fintech cared ‘more about what you do than where you do it’, and that its flexible policy would remain unchanged as long as staff remained productive.” Revolut said it will continue to allow most staff to employ a combination of working remotely, from the office, or from abroad: it calls this a workation, and allows staff to spend 120 a day working from abroad. “Revolut confirmed in a statement that its policy would change for graduates and interns joining in 2027, saying it recognised that ‘the early stages of a career benefit from in-person collaboration and mentoring’.”

JPMorgan’s succession battle takes another turn

JPMorgan Chase has a new head of its consumer business as Troy Rohrbaugh becomes one of two new co-presidents at the bank. “For Rohrbaugh, who built his reputation on trading floors and institutional markets, the consumer franchise represents an entirely new arena — one that rounds out a profile previously light on retail experience. Doug Petno, meanwhile, takes sole command of the Wall Street and commercial banking unit he previously co-led,” reports Quartz. Marianne Lake, who was appointed co-leader of the consumer division in 2021 with Jennifer Piepszak and leader in 2024, and was seen as a potential replacement for Jamie Dimon, is retiring while Dimon is showing no signs of giving up. "Marianne Lake has served our company with distinction for more than 25 years," Dimon said in a statement. "She has been an outstanding partner and friend and has dedicated her career to championing our people and customers, building world-class businesses and delivering results, always with unquestioned integrity." Many analysts reacted with surprise to the departure of Lake, who is relatively young for retirement at 57 years old: it was only last year that American Banker named her the most powerful woman in banking.