Private banking - the personalized banking services rendered to wealthy clients have become more and more popular during the last 15 years. Since the margins in this type of operations are very high, private banks in Europe have begun to concentrate their attention not only on typical High Net Worth Individuals (people with USD 1 million of investable assets) but also on mass affluent segment grouping people with lower assets but significant growth potential. Eastern Europe has only recently become a point of interest for private banks. Poland is one of the most attractive countries in the region, representing 70% of all private financial assets accumulated in the CEE.

The process of wealth creation and wealth accumulation in CEE has gone different way than it was the case in the West. That is the reason why the common measures of affluence adopted in Western Europe are not practical in most countries of Central and Eastern Europe. The segmentation based on regular monthly income is used in Poland. It allows to identify a mass affluent segment of approximately 400-500 individuals - a broad demographic base for potential private banking services.

Private banking in Poland has appeared only 13 years ago and will develop in two possible directions:

1. High-standard private banking, represented by the most prominent banks with foreign capital (Citigold Wealth Management, Millennium Prestige, etc.)
2. Simple-standard private banking provided by special departments of most retail banks in Poland.