Private Banking in a Digital World: Building Trust, Clarity, and Human-Led Client Experiences

Digital convenience has raised the bar in private banking, but trust is still won in the moments where a client needs calm, context, and judgement.

In this episode of Regulated Digital, Dominic Kohler, Head of Investment & Client Solutions at Brown Shipley, shares how a modern private bank can deliver faster, clearer digital experiences without losing the relationship-led model clients rely on.

Brown Shipley supports high net worth individuals across the UK with investment management, wealth planning, and lending, and it sits within the Quintet Private Bank group’s European network.

The Hybrid Model: Digital Speed, Human Judgement

Private banking is often framed as “high touch”, while digital is framed as “high scale”.

In practice, most clients want a blend, and they want it to flex by moment, channel, and need.

Speed and Accessibility Are Now Baseline Expectations

Dom describes digital demand firstly in simple terms: speed and accessibility.

Clients might want to check portfolio performance late in the evening, retrieve a document while travelling, or get a quick snapshot after a news cycle moves markets, and they shouldn't need a phone call to do that.

This is increasingly consistent with how banking capability is judged in market benchmarks such as the Deloitte benchmark.

Human Conversations Still Do the Heavy Lifting

Digital access solves for immediacy, but it does not replace reassurance.

When decisions are consequential, the adviser’s job is to bring clarity to what a client is seeing and feeling, and to connect day-to-day movement back to long-term objectives.

"As good as digital communications are, that human interaction in those times of volatility is definitely key."

Dom Kohler, Brown Shipley

This balance is echoed in reporting which explores how advice is shifting alongside technology, but remains rooted in trust, understanding, and behavioural support.

Channel Choice: Paper Has Not Disappeared

One of the assumptions in digital transformation is that everything will become app-first, and physical artefacts will fade.

Dom’s view is more practical: clients are different, and paper still has a place when it helps someone feel confident and in control.

Flexibility Beats Stereotypes

High-net-worth clients are often stereotyped as phone-only and paper-only.

Dom challenges that, pointing out that many clients like to hold a printed report, while others prefer to open an app at night and browse the same information on a screen - both preferences can exist within the same household.

He also challenges the reverse stereotype: that younger clients want only digital. Across generations, there is still a consistent appetite for personal interaction when decisions carry emotion, complexity, or risk.

Digital Tools in Meetings: Making Advice More Immediate

Some of the most effective “digital communication” happens in person.

Instead of relying on meeting packs prepared days in advance, advisers can use live tools to show portfolio data, allocations, and planning information in real time, in-person.

Live Data Often Beats Stale Packs

Dom describes advisers taking tablets into meetings to walk through up-to-date information with clients.

The benefit is convenience as well as confidence, because questions can be answered using the same data the client sees, without the time-lag and interpretation drift that can accompany printed packs.

Digital, used this way, supports the direct, human relationship rather than competing with it.

Personalisation Without Intrusion

In regulated financial services, “personalisation” can be a loaded term.

Here, it is framed less as targeting and more as giving clients control over depth and detail.

The Helicopter View and the Drill Down

Dom points to a practical reality: some clients want a high-level overview, and others want to go all the way down to instrument-level performance.

That is a reporting design problem as much as it is an advice problem, and a well-designed experience makes both possible without forcing every client into the same default.

This aligns with the expectations on consumer understanding in FCA guidelines, which focus on whether communications support customer understanding, not merely whether information was provided.

Three Design Moves That Reduce Cognitive Load

Dom talks about the risk of “analysis paralysis” when market news is loud and reporting becomes overly technical.

For private banks, the goal is not to hide detail, but to make sure detail is available on demand, not forced on everyone at once.

• Start with the point: lead with the few things a client needs to know today, then offer routes into deeper explanation.
• Let clients choose depth: make “overview” and “detail” a conscious preference, not an accidental burden.
• Separate signal from noise: explain what changed, why it matters, and what (if anything) the bank is doing about it.

The FCA explicitly warns that information overload can deter consumers from engaging and reduce understanding.

Communicating Through Market Volatility

Times of market volatility are perhaps when the human-digital “hybrid” model most tested.

Tone, sequencing, and channel choice can be critical during uncertainty.

Digital First, Then Human Follow-Up

Dom describes the need to communicate quickly through digital channels when market-moving events land, then follow those messages with calls.

Digital gets the initial message out fast, while human conversation allows advisers to handle nuance, questions, and emotional temperature.

This maps well to broader customer experience research that links trust to how firms manage expectations, reduce friction, and resolve uncertainty.

Clarity Beats “Impressive” Information

There is a difference between data that demonstrates capability, and data that helps a client make a decision.

Dom notes that advisers have always had to separate what is useful from what merely looks sophisticated, and that the best communications reinforce the long-term plan, what risk controls are in place, and why the strategy still makes sense.

Consumer Duty: From Disclosure to Understanding

Dom describes Consumer Duty as a cultural change within the industry that empowers firms to go further in their approach to how their communications are received and understood.

Plain English as a Repeatable Discipline

One practical change Dom highlights is more rigorously enforced "plain English checks", including a deliberate reduction of acronyms and insider language.

This can matter because “clear” is not the same as “technically correct”, and it is easy for regulated professionals to write for internal comfort rather than customer understanding.

Evidence and Feedback Loops Matter More

Dom also points to heavier use of management information (MI), including client feedback, survey data, and Net Promoter Scores, to inform decisions and demonstrate better outcomes.

This is consistent with the direction in the FCA’s support review, which focuses on whether customers can get the support they need, through channels that work for them.

Vulnerability Is Not a Separate Workstream

Market volatility is a good reminder that vulnerability is often situational.

The FCA’s vulnerability guide reinforces the need to monitor outcomes and identify friction, not just publish policies.

In practice, good digital comms can be the same thing as good consumer support: clear language, appropriate timing, and easy routes to a human when the customer needs one.

AI as an Enabler, Not a Replacement

The most credible role for AI in a relationship-led model is not to impersonate people, but to give people more time.

Dom’s focus for AI and other types of automation is on removing low-value administration so advisers can spend more of their week doing the work clients actually pay for.

Automation That Buys Back Human Time

Client-facing advice requires judgement, empathy, and the ability to explain trade-offs.

Back-office work still needs to happen, but if it can be streamlined safely, it buys back time for higher-value client conversations.

"If we can speed that up and free up time to spend with our clients and add more value, that's what we want to be doing."

Dom Kohler, Brown Shipley

This theme appears across wealth management research on GenAI and operating models, including BCG reporting.

Staying Close to Core Competence

Digital investment can become expensive when it is used to chase someone else’s business model.

Dom warns against private banks trying to compete head-on with mass-market fintechs, or going “full robo” in categories they are not built to serve.

A Practical Guardrail for Digital Strategy

The safer approach is to invest in digital experiences that strengthen what the bank is already good at: relationship depth, tailored advice, and confidence during complex decisions.

"Put clients and your core competencies first" says Dom, and your digital communications strategy can be built around that.

FAQs

Do High Net Worth Clients Really Want Digital Access?

Yes, for speed and convenience, especially for checking information outside office hours.

They still tend to prefer human advice when decisions are complex, emotional, or time-sensitive.

What Does “Personalisation” Mean in a Regulated Wealth Context?

Often, it is less about targeting and more about letting clients choose the level of detail they see.

A good experience supports both a high-level view and a drill-down when the client wants it.

How Has Consumer Duty Changed Client Communications?

It has increased scrutiny on clarity, plain English, and evidence of customer understanding, not just disclosure.

It also pushes firms to use feedback and outcomes data to improve how support and communications work.

What Role Should Digital Play During Market Volatility?

Digital should move quickly to reduce uncertainty, then make it easy for clients to speak to someone who can provide context and reassurance.

References

FG22/5 Final Non-Handbook Guidance for Firms on the Consumer Duty, Financial Conduct Authority, 2022

PRIN 2A.5 Consumer Duty: Retail Customer Outcome on Consumer Understanding, Financial Conduct Authority, 2023

Consumer Support Outcome: Good Practices and Areas for Improvement, Financial Conduct Authority, 2025

Delivering Good Outcomes for Customers in Vulnerable Circumstances, Financial Conduct Authority, 2025

PS25/20 Supporting Informed Decision Making: Final Rules and Guidance, Financial Conduct Authority, 2025

Digital Banking Maturity 2024, Deloitte, 2024

The Future of Financial Advice, World Economic Forum, 2024

UK Customer Experience Excellence Report 2024/25, KPMG, 2024

2024 EY Global Wealth Management Industry Report, EY, 2024

Global Wealth Report 2024: The GenAI Era Unfolds, Boston Consulting Group, 2024

Reviewed by

Sam Kendall, 11.02.2026