“We have a 75 per cent cost/income ratio, which is probably not the lowest but it is much better than the average area, when it comes to this high level of services and advice, there are not more than two or three competitors in private banking and wealth management business and that are really competitive,” Truchi continued.

“Our penetration of the ultra high net worth market has been pretty successful. We are gaining market share and our share of wallet. The positioning of SGPB towards ultra high net worth business has shown very good results in the first half of the year,” he said.

As for regional focus, Truchi said that the Asia-Pacific region was clearly very important but at present, the private bank was broadly based in terms of where it operates: Middle East, Asia, Western and Eastern Europe, Latin America.

“Our AuM growth is coming from all these regions - it is spread around all over the world. That is probably also another strength of SGPB,” he added.