Sources inform ''Globes'' that Bank Leumi (TASE: LUMI) is raising the threshold for its Israeli private banking customers to NIS 5 million ($1.3 million). The threshold for foreign customers remained unchanged at $500,000.
Bank Leumi VP International and Private Banking Division Zvi Itskovitch confirmed the intention, saying, "We're considering raising the private banking threshold for Israeli residents. Leumi uses a model not used by any other company in Israel. The quality of private banking services is very high, including by international standards, and a service of this kind involves high costs."
Itskovitch said that Bank Leumi would show flexibility in defining the threshold, and that it will apply an additional criterion of the level of activity by the customer. "A customer with extensive activity in securities who uses many investment services can join the private banking, even if his assets are less than NIS 5 million."
Bank Leumi has several private banking centers, including at the Millennium Tower and Dizengoff Tower in Tel Aviv, the Dan Panorama Hotel in Haifa, next to the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, and in Herzliya Pituah. Itskovitch denied reports that the bank plans to open a new private banking center or move one of the present centers to new premises under construction at the 1 Rothschild Tower in Tel Aviv.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on August 16, 2010
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