The Million Dollar Question: What’s the typical minimum to open a relationship with a top US private bank?
The Million Dollar Question this Friday:
What is the typical minimum to open a relationship with Goldman Sachs Private Wealth or J.P. Morgan Private Bank in 2025?
A) $1 million B) $5 million C) $10 million D) $25 million
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Most people guess low — $1 million feels like the number that should buy you into “private banking,” since it’s the same figure that gets thrown around as the definition of a millionaire. The actual answer is $10 million, and at the very top of the tier the bar climbs even higher.
Goldman Sachs Private Wealth Management and J.P. Morgan Private Bank both set their opening threshold at $10 million in investable assets. Citi Private Bank asks for the same $10 million in investments, but layers on a $25 million net-worth requirement on top of it. That’s a materially higher bar than the wirehouse “private wealth” desks — Morgan Stanley and UBS open relationships at $5 million, with Merrill and Wells Fargo Private Bank running slightly lower still. The gap between those two tiers is not cosmetic: a private bank bundles full banking-investment integration — lending against public stock, private stock, real estate, and art at preferential rates, custom credit, custody, trust services, and a relationship manager who actually knows the family — while a wirehouse desk is closer to a senior advisor with a support team bolted onto a brokerage platform.
What the answer reveals: most households who think of themselves as “private-bank material” at $1-5 million are, by the industry’s own thresholds, still two tiers below that door. The right home for a $1-10 million household is usually an independent RIA, not a brand-name private bank — the institutions themselves only start opening up once a household clears eight figures.
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This question is treated in full in Money Management: From Wealth Manager to Family Office, which walks through the full seven-tier ladder from robo-advisor to single-family office — who qualifies for each, and what it actually costs.
If you have a Million Dollar Question you’d like to see treated in a future Friday email, send it to [email protected].
— Logan Pierce
Editor, How Millionaires Live
