The first and the foremost question that comes to the mind is whether wealth management is a part and parcel of investment banking? Is it proper to consider a wealth manager and investment banker as one and the same thing? Or else a person working at wealth management firm can say that he/she is working at an investment bank? Grace Jackson Suntrust is an expert who can very well answer such questions with great ease at the very first go. One must understand that wealth management and investment banking are two very different things and cannot be considered as same by any chance. An investment banker and a wealth manager are two very different professions and cannot be treated as one.
One can consider wealth management as a part or division of investment banking but not one and the same thing. Apart from sharing certain features, both of them are two very different things and must not be considered as the same thing. A firm which is primarily an investment banking firm can have a separate wealth management or private banking unit. All this will make more sense for the sales process and is viable too in all aspects. Hence, one can very rightly conclude that both these terms work in the opposite direction and not similar to each other. Grace Jackson Suntrust also proposes the same thing.
Wealth management is more than just investing in a project. It is a more broad term in comparison to the term investment. In the current scenario, most wealth managers are just investment managers. One can broadly say that investment management is an important and significant aspect of wealth management. It is not the complete picture but just the trailer of the picture. Wealth management is a combination of various disciplines.
Investment banking and wealth management differ in the level of financial planning advice provided to an individual investor. Wealth managers provide detailed financial planning along with investment management. This financial planning includes investments too. In simple words one can say that Private Wealth Management is a part of Investment Management. An investment banker provides wide array of services as compared to the wealth manager who is just related to managing the investments only. There is a significant amount of overlap or combination between the two terms but the two jobs are purely distinct and different from each other. They should not be considered as one but two very different but overlapping aspects of finance which must be studied or talked about in combination always.
An investment banker deals with the corporate entities on a larger scale whereas a wealth manager deals more with individuals. He/She is more concerned about the individual been talked about. In more simple words, wealth management refers to money management in all aspects of the word and must not be ignored or neglected at any cost at any point of time.
To conclude, one can say that investment banking and wealth management are inter related but two very different aspects of financial planning and must be adhered to accordingly.