Deutsche Bank Private Bank has positioned itself as a specialist partner for Asia’s most sophisticated family offices. The German bank offers what it describes as “institutional wealth solutions” for first and second generation entrepreneurs running complex, often global, business groups.
The franchise in Asia has been deliberately reshaped around this segment, with family offices and ultra-high-net-worth (UHNW) clients now contributing a clear majority of regional private bank revenues and showing strong growth in both revenue and book size.
At the centre of the proposition is a dedicated institutional wealth management offering for UHNW and single-family offices, led from the regional hubs of Singapore and Hong Kong. Coverage has been carved out for this segment, with a compact team of senior relationship managers each handling a small number of very large relationships. They are supported by a UHNW/family office advisory desk that acts as a single point of access to the bank’s global markets, corporate advisory, credit and risk solution capabilities. The model is designed to mirror the way institutional investors are covered: specialist desks provide liquidity management, single stock risk management and cross asset ideas, while the relationship team coordinates across businesses and jurisdictions.
The bank differentiates its proposition in terms of how family offices want to deploy capital today, with private credit taking increased relevance in the family-office space.
Sophisticated structures for sophisticated families
As many family offices become comfortable acting as lenders or taking exposure to loan portfolios rather than just being borrowers, Deutsche Bank has leaned into that shift by using its universal bank platform to originate and structure private credit, special situation and structured leverage solutions that family offices can access.
A second theme is strategic, often highly-bespoke financing for families that still control large listed or privately held companies, as bankers see a growing trend of founder families choosing to buy back and privatise businesses when public market valuations do not reflect their view of intrinsic value.
In parallel, Deutsche Bank has replaced much of its simple Lombard lending with more structured, leverage solutions that link family wealth and operating companies, frequently in partnership with the investment bank.
2025 proved the value of our strategic focus on UHNW/family offices, with relationship managers in Asia recording, on average, more than 70% year-on-year revenue growth
Marco Pagliara
Marco Pagliara, head of emerging markets, private bank, said: “It is an honour to be recognised for the best-in-class solutions we provide Asia’s family-office ecosystem. We are proud to put the private bank’s balance sheet to work, tailoring solutions to the unique ambitions and complexities of each family office and collaborating with our investment bank to create structures that leverage the bank’s capital markets expertise and global connectivity. 2025 proved the value of our strategic focus on UHNW/family offices, with relationship managers in Asia recording, on average, more than 70% year-on-year revenue growth.”
The advisory and markets offer is built to match this complexity. The UHNW/family office desk and specialist FX advisers deliver ideas more akin to those offered to endowments or hedge funds, from exploiting dislocations in forward markets to structuring gold and volatility trades across formats. During recent bouts of market stress, they used enhanced stress testing tools and automated pricing capabilities to help family offices manage risk in real time while still taking advantage of dislocations. For families with concentrated equity positions, tailor made liquidity and hedge solutions seek to manage single stock risk without undermining control or long term strategic plans.
Deutsche Bank also recognises that Asia’s family offices are institutionalising rapidly, hiring their own chief investment office and investment teams and demanding a different dialogue from private banks.
The bank has responded by deepening its coverage and content for this audience, including dedicated family office forums in Singapore and Hong Kong and targeted trips that connect Asian families to capital and opportunities in the Middle East and beyond.
