Family offices shop around more for banks

Family offices in Asia tend to rely heavily on the custody and execution services provided by private banks. To a lesser extent, they also often use them for deal and product sourcing, wealth and succession planning and certain other functions. But as investment banks get squeezed as a result of more costs and regulation – such as Europe's Basel III and the US's Dodd-Frank Act – so private banks are less able to act as a 'one-stop shop', argued participants in a recent roundtable …