Shim Dong-kyu
The author is an executive managing director of the PB Strategy Division at Korea Investment & Securities.
At 6 a.m., the day begins at the gym while checking the morning news. On the commute to work, a podcast summarizing overnight moves in the U.S. stock market plays through earphones. By 8 a.m., a team meeting is underway to review client portfolios. The afternoon is filled with consultations and meetings with corporate clients. After the Korean market closes, preparations begin for the next day’s strategy. Only after checking the opening of the U.S. market at 10:30 p.m. does the workday finally end.
This is the routine life of a private banker, or PB, at a securities firm.
The interior of a Shinhan Bank PB center is seen in Jongno District, Seoul. The photo is unrelated to the content of the column. [JOONGANG ILBO]
In an era when YouTube channels and AI can analyze markets and even recommend stocks, the question naturally arises: Are PBs still necessary? It is a fair question. Most transactions can now be handled through a smartphone application. Claims that technology threatens the traditional role of PBs are hardly exaggerated.
Yet one important point is often overlooked. AI is not eliminating PBs so much as changing what they do.
In the past, the biggest obstacle for investors was a lack of information. Today the situation is the opposite. The challenge is no longer acquiring more information but deciding what to trust and what to ignore. AI has democratized access to information, but it has not removed the burden of judgment.
Anyone can receive a portfolio recommendation generated by an algorithm. The more difficult question is whether an investor can maintain that strategy during a sharp market decline. Decisions involving risk tolerance, family finances, cash flow, taxes and retirement planning still require human judgment. Markets may be shared by all investors, but each investor’s circumstances are different.
This is precisely where the role of the PB is evolving. In the past, a PB’s competitive advantage largely depended on access to information and financial products. In the AI era, the real advantage lies in interpretation and judgment.
Simply introducing products or executing trades is no longer enough. PBs are increasingly expected to interpret a client’s financial condition and personal priorities while helping determine which option best fits an individual life situation. A client nearing retirement, for example, may require a completely different strategy from a younger investor focused on aggressive growth. Even when the market outlook is identical, the appropriate response may differ depending on debt levels, family obligations or long-term financial goals.
Even that judgment is rarely based on personal intuition alone. It is usually the product of collaboration involving research centers as well as specialists in taxation, real estate and law. The modern PB is expected to synthesize expertise from multiple fields and translate it into practical decisions that clients can understand and sustain.
The transformation extends well beyond the financial industry. In the AI era, the first professionals at risk of disappearing may not be human experts themselves, but average experts. Tasks limited to delivering news or organizing information can already be performed faster and often more accurately by AI systems.
According to the “2025 Korea Wealth Report” published by Hana Financial Group’s research institute, 50 percent of young wealthy respondents and 71 percent of older wealthy respondents identified PBs as the single greatest influence on their investment decisions. The number of information channels has exploded, yet investors still seek human guidance when making final decisions.
A man walks a dog past the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) building in New York City on Aug. 11, 2020. [REUTERS/YONHAP]
But not every human adviser will survive equally.
Asset management is ultimately not an information business but an interpretation business. Information, products and market data are already abundant. What remains scarce is a framework capable of connecting those elements to the realities of individual lives.
As AI becomes more sophisticated, the work of PBs may actually become more difficult rather than easier. What disappears is not the need for experts. What disappears is the space for people pretending to be experts.
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
댓글
0