Bank targets growing 'mass affluent' group

The growing number of affluent people in Northern Ireland are being targeted by Abbey National, who today offered to manage their money for them.

The bank estimates there are 100,000 people in the province with more than £50,000 (€80,000) to invest and wants to help them do it.

It opened its first Inscape wealth management advice centre for the province in Belfast and created 12 jobs in the process.

The estimated 8% of the adult population in Northern Ireland with the required assets are what the bank calls the growing ‘‘mass affluent’’ group in the UK to whom they want to offer the type of individual attention and advice usually only enjoyed by the very wealthy.

Inscape, already operating in 11 other centres across the UK, offers investment management in the form of tailored portfolios, deposit accounts and a range of complementary services including tax planning and trust management.

The new centre was opened by Sir Reg Empey, Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Investment, at the Waterfront Plaza at Mays Meadow in Belfast.

The Minister said: ‘‘Abbey National has been a significant investor in Northern Ireland in recent years, and this investment is proof that the economy has progressed so that Inscape has the confidence to establish a full-time presence in Belfast.’’

Malcolm Parker, managing director of Inscape, said it had been developed for ‘‘the mass affluent market of around 100,000 adults in Northern Ireland, and the four million adults who fall into this group throughout the UK’’.

He added: ‘‘We have built the service from the bottom up after listening carefully to this new group to develop a service which tailors and manages their investments to suit their very different needs.’’

Jeff Curry, regional client relationship manager of the Belfast centre, added: ‘‘Our service will offer the people of Northern Ireland a ground-breaking combination of first-class personal advice and attention, with access to some of the best fund-management skills in the world.

‘‘In uncertain financial markets our ‘manager of managers’ approach combines much-needed flexibility with maximum control over how clients’ money is invested, providing a service that is finely tuned to their needs.

‘‘Previously this sophisticated method of managing investments was only available to institutions and an elite few’’.