How to find a good personal banker

If you've got a lot of money, resist the temptation to throw it all away on fancy labels. Get yourself a proper wealth manager and preserve your spending power for the future.

I wandered through a City shopping centre earlier this week and marvelled. Here, in the midst of the credit crunch and on the edge of a nasty recession, were hordes of people shopping. Not in Woolworths or French Connection, but in Tiffany, Paul Smith, Herms, Penhaligon's and Gucci.

And not just window shopping, either - business looked brisk. It's a scene apparently being played out in smart malls all over the world. Sales at the likes of Mulberry, Burberry and Horne & Co have been soaring and, in defiance of what most of us would consider common sense, those with access to cash continue to throw money at 'passion investments' - fancy diamonds, wine, boats and luxury travel.

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Merryn Somerset Webb

Merryn Somerset Webb started her career in Tokyo at public broadcaster NHK before becoming a Japanese equity broker at what was then Warburgs. She went on to work at SBC and UBS without moving from her desk in Kamiyacho (it was the age of mergers).

After five years in Japan she returned to work in the UK at Paribas. This soon became BNP Paribas. Again, no desk move was required. On leaving the City, Merryn helped The Week magazine with its City pages before becoming the launch editor of MoneyWeek in 2000 and taking on columns first in the Sunday Times and then in 2009 in the Financial Times

Twenty years on, MoneyWeek is the best-selling financial magazine in the UK. Merryn was its Editor in Chief until 2022. She is now a senior columnist at Bloomberg and host of the Merryn Talks Money podcast -  but still writes for Moneyweek monthly. 

Merryn is also is a non executive director of two investment trusts – BlackRock Throgmorton, and the Murray Income Investment Trust.