Three levels of wealth
With this account balance you are considered rich by banks
Updated 10/22/2025 – 3:53 p.mReading time: 2 min.
When are you really rich for banks? The institutes draw clear boundaries. Anyone who exceeds this limit often gets more than just better interest rates.
A large house in a prime residential area, an expensive car or several long-distance trips a year – those who can afford something like this are considered wealthy by many people. But whether you are recognized as rich by your own bank does not depend on such external signs, but on the amount of freely available assets.
According to a report in the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung”, anyone who has between 100,000 and one million euros is considered “affluent”, i.e. wealthy, in the financial world. From one million euros you become a so-called HNWI (“High Net Worth Individual”) and therefore officially “rich”. And anyone who has more than 30 million euros in their pockets rises to the league of UHNWI (“Ultra High Net Worth Individuals”), to the league of the super rich.
For banks, these customer groups are worth their weight in gold – in the truest sense. They bring stable income, remain loyal to their institutions and change banks less often than traditional savers with fixed-term deposit accounts. The competition for this clientele is therefore fierce. In addition to German private banks and savings banks, Swiss and Liechtenstein institutions are also vying for wealthy Germans. Large US banks are also entering the market.
If the account balance reaches the six-figure range, this brings advantages: preferential advice, shorter waiting times and better conditions. Once you have a certain amount of wealth, you often have a personal contact who can be reached by phone or email and tailors the investment to your own life.
For example, we look at the industry in which someone works. For example, if you receive your income from a tech company, your bank advisor will recommend filling your securities portfolio more with stocks and funds from other industries.
And yet: Even millionaires usually don’t receive financial products tailored to them. In order to make advice less time-consuming, banks use a wide range of products that can be adapted to the individual wishes of customers. This at least makes the overall package feel more exclusive. Only when freely available assets are around one to five million euros does it become worthwhile for banks to personalize portfolios more. Anyone who owns even more has access to alternative investments, such as infrastructure or energy projects.
However, if you have assets of more than 30 million euros, access to such products becomes normal. Financial products in these spheres are also actually becoming more individual. But exclusivity has its price: some banks charge fees of up to 1.9 percent per year for tailor-made funds, i.e. 1,900 euros per 100,000 euros of investment volume.
However, it is doubtful that the returns sufficiently compensate for these costs. It is possible that wealthy people would also fare better if they simply took care of their investments themselves.
