Surely the best indication of the health of a private bank is whether or not the wealthy are giving the bank their money. Profits and cost/income ratios won’t stay positive for long if new money flows are falling, and no amount of cost cutting will improve the long-term health of the private bank if money isn’t flowing in.

In this respect, Julius Baer's private banking business is doing exceptionally well. The Zurich-based bank's wealth unit managed to vacuum up SFr8.4bn in net new money in the first half of the year - that's up more than 50% from the level achieved in the same period a year ago.