The ever-evolving world of concierge business, which this news service has explored already, speaks to how wealth management goes beyond investment and tax.

For example, at RBC Echelon, a lifestyle services platform of , which provides global emergency medicine. It was founded by Chris Sidford, MD. Sidford has almost 30 years’ experience working in medical institutions and, prior to that, he was a US Navy officer, serving as a faculty member of the Emergency Medicine Residency training programme. 

We asked Sidford what has changed in recent years in his sector. 

“There's now a much sharper awareness among our clients of just how difficult it can be to access and navigate healthcare; it is an awareness that has grown in step with their increasingly nomadic lifestyles,” Sidford said.

“Historically, our attention, and theirs, was concentrated on remote and developing-market destinations, where the gaps in healthcare infrastructure were obvious and expected. 

“The pandemic changed that calculus. It exposed real fragility in healthcare systems everywhere, including places clients had always assumed were reliably well-served. The result is that families and individuals now recognise this isn't a risk confined to exotic or underdeveloped locations. It's a pervasive, location-independent vulnerability, and they plan for it accordingly, regardless of where in the world they happen to be,” he continued. 

“Rather than viewing us as a specialised resource reserved for expedition-style or international travel, they increasingly see us as a standing layer of healthcare infrastructure. It is an integrated extension of their lives that travels with them wherever home happens to be that year,” Sidford said. 

Mention of the pandemic reminds this news service of how access to healthcare or the struggle to obtain it sharpened conversations. It brought fears to the surface. Perhaps it is no accident that specialists in healthcare and medicine have cropped up several times in the Family Wealth Report annual awards in specialist categories over recent years. There are organisations such as The Howell Legacy Group, which won an award for Healthcare Services in the 2026 Family Wealth Report Awards; another firm, winning an FWR award in 2024, is TrustHouse (see here). 

Trends, enthusiasms and risks
Sidford said several trends are emerging in his field. 

There is a “steady, sustained level of interest in medical tourism, as clients look abroad for procedures that are either more affordable or more readily accessible than what's available through their home healthcare systems,” he said.

“This is especially pronounced in plastic surgery and regenerative medicine, where cost differentials and shorter wait times abroad remain significant draws.”

“The second, and arguably the more dominant trend, is longevity and brain health. It now sits at the top of nearly every client conversation,” he said. “Encouragingly, the strongest and best-supported interventions are also the simplest: quality sleep, a disciplined diet, consistent exercise, and avoidance of sleep aids, recreational drugs, and excessive alcohol. Of these, strength and muscle-building work deserves emphasis, as research increasingly ties it to healthy ageing.

“We're also seeing growing interest in the social and cognitive dimensions of longevity: maintaining active social networks and pursuing ongoing learning, both increasingly recognised as protective for long-term brain health,” Sidford continued. 

There are grounds for caution amidst all the scientific buzz, however. 

“Two areas warrant a more cautious note. Peptide therapies are generating tremendous enthusiasm among our clientele, but the well-controlled human clinical evidence has not caught up with that enthusiasm,” Sidford said. “Client demand is running ahead of the science, and we counsel accordingly. Similarly, GLP-1 medications remain front and centre in longevity conversations, valued for their legitimate metabolic benefits but increasingly used off label or without supervision in pursuit of longevity outcomes they weren't necessarily designed or tested for.”

This news service sked him how Black Bag works alongside the rest of the wealth management/private client ecosystem.

“We've worked with several family office organisations over the past decade or so, as well as with individual family offices and trust and estate professionals directly. They’re often the first to recognise when a client's health and travel profile calls for this kind of dedicated support.

“We also work closely alongside executive protection professionals, including individuals with backgrounds in the FBI and Secret Service, and security teams from major sports organisations around the globe. In some cases, we partner directly with those security teams; in others, we work with individual protection professionals. Together, we regularly give presentations to families, family offices, and their advisors on the risks associated with international travel and the preventive measures available to manage them. This is positioning medical preparedness as a natural complement to physical security planning, rather than a separate consideration,” Sidford said.  

Rising wealth tide
In the RBC Echelon list of services mentioned above, RBC said earlier this year that in the US, it plans to more than double the number of households for its UHNW segment by the year 2030. Concierge will be a part of that. 

These services tend to be used by UHNW clients which is the fastest growing segment in the world according to a 2026 Atrata World Altra Wealth Report, with a 15 per cent growth rate from 2025 in the US. This growth tends to be focused on major markets along the east coast and west coast as well as Texas and Chicago.

There is a confidence that comes with having access to services that have gone through a screening process and used by other RBC clients, Bill Ringham, director of private wealth strategies, who leads the RBC Echelon platform, said. “Clients appreciate that they have access to these services with the confidence that RBC Wealth Management has vetted the service and other clients like them are also using the service,” he said. For banks such as RBC, concierge gives an added bit of “glue” to a relationship.  

Other banks agree. At Citigroup, for example, its Citigold Private Client offering provides curated lifestyle privileges, exclusive wealth and lifestyle event invitations. Switzerland's largest bank, UBS, offers two main concierge services: a Wealth Concierge for day-to-day administrative and lifestyle needs, and an exclusive, travel-focused Visa Concierge for cardholders. JP Morgan Private Bank and Bank of America Private Bank have various offerings among a large field. In Singapore, examples include DBS Private Bank and UOB Private Bank.

And it is hard not to see concierge as tapping into a thirst for travel and adventure that was squashed by lockdowns. For Sidford, he knows the wanderlust of wealthy clients is easier to handle if medical care is within reach. 

“Several of our clients live internationally full-time, based out of South America, Africa, and Europe. Beyond that established base, we're seeing a steady increase in individual, expedition-style trips, such as extended private yacht tours, African safaris, mountaineering and climbing expeditions, and adventure and social travel to destinations such as Machu Picchu, Kilimanjaro, and Patagonia.

“That footprint shapes how we build our provider and logistics networks. We're not just planning for major population centres, but for genuinely remote itineraries, where evacuation logistics, altitude and environmental medicine, and communication reliability all need to be addressed in advance, not improvised in the moment,” Sidford concluded.