Luxembourg-headquartered Quintet Private Bank on 27 March 2025 released its annual results for 2024. Net profit rose 45% to reach €68m, total group income dropped to €571.8m and expenses decreased to €495.1m. The bank’s Basel III common equity tier 1 ratio stood at 20.3% at the end of 2024, up from 19.6% at the end of 2023, while the liquidity coverage ratio stood at 137.4% at the end of 2024 (versus 147.9% at the end of 2023).
“2024 was just a continual implementation of the strategy that we laid out, right at the end of 2022, beginning of 2023,” group CEO told Paperjam. Besides Luxembourg, the bank operates in the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium and Denmark, and organisational simplicity is a key part of Quintet’s . Last year, “we continued to do what we said we were going to do, which is--at its simplest level--creating more and more time.” That means time to spend with clients and time to focus on value-added activities.
“Investment performance was really good in 2024,” he noted. On top of that, “we saw really strong performance from lots of different strands and lots of different parts of the bank. So it’s not as if it was just one unit that had a good year and everybody else didn’t.”
Increased confidence from existing clients
Total client assets increased to €100.6bn at the end of 2024, up from €92bn at the end of 2023. In the first half of the year, Allen explained, “we got a greater share of our existing clients’ wallet. And that, for me, is really good, because it shows we’re building confidence from our existing clients, that they feel confident they want to give us more of their wealth. That, for me, is a real vote of confidence as to the strategy being right and that the strategy is working.”
In the second half of the year, there was more emphasis on the results that came through market share, meaning clients new to the bank. “Again, that’s across all of our different strands and geographies,” he said. “That was really positive, and actually sets us up really nicely for 2025… it sounds very boring, but we want to do more of the same. Continue to invest in growth, continue to take both share of wallet and market share.”
2024 highlights: new hires and a Finnish desk
Quintet in July 2023 and in April 2024 designed with the asset manager. “Embedding” that partnership has also brought benefits to the bank, said Allen, allowing Quintet to work with larger clients and family offices. “We’re also--in addition to the core business--seeing a sort of shift to greater wins with larger, ultra-high-net-worth family office-type clients.”
Another success was “greater connectivity” between Quintet’s wealth management business and its external asset manager business. “We’re seeing more opportunity for collaboration, and particularly here in Luxembourg, with our asset servicing business.”
Last year also saw some “really good hiring,” said Allen. Luca Derlin ; Stéphane Pardini was ; and Quintet by recruiting five Finnish wealth management professionals.
Challenges and opportunities ahead
Where does he see challenges and opportunities in the future? “I would say there are three obvious challenges,” replied Allen. “One, the world is quite a complex place. Financial markets hate one thing the most, and that’s uncertainty. We saw moments throughout the year when clients were unsure, and for us, that’s a huge opportunity. That’s probably when they need their wealth manager, their wealth planner the most.” Quintet’s philosophy has two elements: to protect and to grow wealth, he explained. “During uncertain times, that philosophy on protecting wealth against downturns in the market has become really very relevant.”
The second challenge: interest rates are falling. “Across the world, all banks are having to react to the challenge that we will earn less money from deposits as interest rates fall. Making sure we are properly positioned with clients across all parts of their wealth, of their wallet, is really important.”
And the third challenge is an aging client base. “What happens when you get old? You typically spend more of your money. A big part of the outflows that we see is our clients just spending their money,” said Allen. But on the other hand, the next generation of clients presents an opportunity. “The big opportunity for us and firms like us is this massive wealth transfer that’s taking place across Europe, from one generation to another,” he concluded. “Whatever age they may be--18, 50, 60--they think about, ‘Do I need to change my banking relationship?’ So that’s also an opportunity for us across our markets to really gain greater market share, [but] also a potential threat as well, that we could lose part of our share.”