Bank of New York says the recent sale of its retail-banking business to JP Morgan will not affect its private-banking business. It was a...

Bank of New York says the recent sale of its retail-banking business to JP Morgan will not affect its private-banking business. It was announced over the weekend that JP Morgan had secured a deal to acquire its US rival’s retail-banking business in a swap of assets, whereby BofNY will give JP Morgan its corporate trust unit and a cash payment of $150 million for the exchange. BofNY said after the deal that it would retain and continue to build its private-banking business. Through the deal, JP Morgan will gain more than 300 Bank of New York branches in the New York area, which serves around 600,000 households. In addition to consumer-banking clients, JP Morgan will also get 100,000 small-business and 2,000 middle-market clients, and $8 billion in outstanding loans as a result of the deal. Some analysts say the deal might affect the long-term viability of BofNY’s private banking business. “BofNY appears to be moving more towards making its money in securities processing, treasury management and investment management,” a New York-based analyst told WealthBriefing. “I’m not sure where private banking fits into all this, particularly as the bank has lost a useful ‘incubator’ for its wealth management business with the retail sale.”