What are the differences between normal retail banking, privilege banking and private banking?

Privilege banking you get a RM who can do some of the admin work for you (fee waivers, miles redemptions), they would also try to get to know your situation and jump in whenever the bank is running a promo for products that you would like. They are still sales folks so if you say you want exposure to XYZ they will try to push some managed funds on you. There is some investment consultants who will sing and dance about the latest bank view if you are into that kind of thing.

You can make them really happy by buying insurance through them as well - they would have insurance specialists who are as knowledgable as insurer agents. You may also get some better pricing (cheaper loan interest, brokerage cost, etc etc). To be honest I feel it is like normal banking stuff and other services you could get elsewhere but all in one place with a slightly nicer shell.

Private banking is quite a bit different. At the high AUM end, aside from all the above, the expectation is that there would be more bespoke services for your particular needs - eg. customizations on loans to support your business - want to expand an operations in Thailand by pledging land there and have it demoninated in SGD to pay suppliers here? No problem!

On the investments side, you have access to treasury/derviatives desk who can price out custom instruments for any exotic payoff profile you are looking for if you have particular views you want to express in market. These things you are unlikely to find through your mass-market online brokerages / robos / etc etc.

Hi Leo,

One of the primary differentiators is that through a private/privilege banking, you would have a dedicated banker/RM to serve you, with access to products more customized to your needs than what the retail market can offer. The retail banking market, while having quite a number of products, still remains a market that aims to serve the mass market and mass affluent.

Examples include special structured products, access to institutional level products, better rates on FD, etc. Also not to mention intangible perks like preferential banking hotline where the customer service is pretty much trained to make things happen for you, priority queues for just about anything (at the bank, at an event), etc. DBS treasures has a lounge just for their clients at the airport, so you'll always be assured of access even if you are in economy. (Although if I had DBS Treasures status, I'd probably be getting a card with unlimited Priority Pass)

Between privilege banking and private banking, Kelly has already given a pretty comprehensive breakdown, so I won't be adding on to that. Just to point out that the AUM requirements will be much higher than privilege banking. Think more than $250K for privilege, and more than $1.5M for private. There's probably an even higher tier ($10M and above) for some banks, but these are always shrouded in secrecy and I only know what I know from hearsay.