eFinancialCareers

With contemporary art prices rising 55% in the past year, Scotland’s private bankers would do well to know their Monet from their Manet.

However, while London’s investment scene appears convinced of the benefits of art as an investment class (witness this week’s Frieze Art Fair, which is expected to raise £145m), Scotland may be falling behind.

The Bank of Scotland is sadly lacking in art expertise at its private banking arm, while over at Lloyds TSB Scotland, dabbling with private clients and art has so far consisted of hosting the occasional showing for them – most recently at the Edinburgh Festival, where 107 paintings were displayed and 52 bought by Lloyds TSB clients.

In contrast many European-based private banks now not only offer art advisory services to their wealthy clients, but are incorporating art investment into everyday training programmes for private client advisers.

Art investment expert Bernard Duffy recently spent a day with the London-based graduates of one such bank, introducing them to the basics of art as an investment. He says: "[Knowledge of] Art has to be an essential part of any private banker’s weaponry. It helps them to enhance their relationship with clients. I believe that if you are a qualified banker, you should be able to discuss art with clients."

Duffy also runs the course in Art Investment for Euromoney Training. In the two years since the inception of the £30k course, he has seen the number of senior private bankers and relationship managers taking the course rise ‘substantially’, with bankers from as far away as the US and Asia in attendance – but not, it seems, from Glasgow or Edinburgh.