YOU know private banking has come of age and captured Singaporeans' imagination when my friend's Barbie-look-alike seven-year-old daughter proclaims: "When I grow up, I want to be a private banker."
I was flabbergasted: "Why?"
Lisa rolled her eyes at me in an oh-so-sophisticated way and said precociously: "I get to wear nice clothes and tell rich people how to use their money".
It sounded a lot like what Little Miss Private Banker Wannabe already does at home, but I wasn't going to going to spoil her fun (and mine), so I ventured another interview question: "How did you know about what private bankers do, Lisa?"
She tilted her head, just so, for dramatic effect, and said authoritatively: "From the newspapers lah."
That's when I told myself: I have failed as a journalist.
Having covered the Singapore financial sector - which includes the flourishing private banking industry - for four years, I have written quite extensively about hiring and growth trends. From 2004 to last year, private banks were sprouting up in Shenton Way, and announcing with great fanfare their plans to hire thousands of private bankers and their torrid double-digit growth in assets under management.
Those were the days when my friends in corporate and investment banking were all taking the yellow brick road - we all hoped - towards fortune and the fine life in wealth management.
Those were the days when the clarion call for more Singaporeans to train as private bankers to address the talent crunch reveberated through the office cubicles of engineers, accountants, IT staff, etc. It stirred young professionals to arise, go forth, take financial courses and cross over into the green pastures of private banking.
I wrote about all that, and I'll admit: I was guilty of glamourising the sector.
It was a sexy news angle afterall. And really, every private banker I had seen under 50 was glamourous and looked like they just walked out of a fashion magazine. (By the way, they still look like that, two years down the road - in spite of being in 24/7 stand-by mode for their clients' calls and meeting what seemed like gargantuan targets for new assets and revenue each year. I have yet to weasle out their beauty secrets, but who knows, it may well be the pinacle of my journalistic career to break that scoop).
But I also partly believed in it myself. When I got a couple of headhunter calls at that time, I was tempted - but a little voice in my head intoned: "You're still too young, you're not mature or humble enough to advise clients who have eaten more salt than you have rice." (Plus I'm not drop-dead gorgeous and I did have a six-year scholarship bond.)
I have no idea how I got that notion in my head that maturity had anything to do with successful private banking. But two years later - still a journalist on The Straits Times' Money Desk - I interviewed a private banker with 20 years of experience who told me almost exactly the same thing.
He was one of the over 20 private bankers that I interviewed for today's mega Saturday Special Report on private bankers. He knew his stuff; he had survived. But frankly, he wasn't anything I had really expected a typical successful private banker to be.
He acknowledged it himself: "I'm balding, old, cheena-looking, can't speak polished English, don't know much about wine and art, and I'm quite boring. But I'm mature and I know how to listen to clients."
Age and maturity. There it is again. Seven-year-olds need not apply.
Indeed, what jumped out at me when speaking to heads of private banks is that the really valued private bankers are neither the ones who are beautiful, nor those who have a Wharton finance degree or Wall Street pedigree. (Although all those traits do help.)
Those who are survivers and thrivers have discretion, stamina, perseverence, emotional maturity, honed through at least eight years' experience in the private banking sector.
They also know how to offer their clients advice on financial decision-making to enrich their family lives and seek significance and legacy in a life complicated by money - lots of it.
One thing I omitted in today's Saturday Special Report is the philanthropic advisory activities of private bankers. Setting up foundations and donating to needy causes don't quite fall under the advisory scope of a private banker, but they are in a unique position to influence their clients to enrich others (especially the poor and disenfranchised) and not just themselves.
So when I wrote this mega feature on private bankers, I set out to debunk some myths and set the record straight about the common perception of a private banker's job. I wrote it for kids like Lisa - hoping they will aspire to be mature and community-minded before they grow up to advise others on how to invest.
I hope it helps.
Read Grace Ng's Saturday Special Report in The Straits Times today.