If you are rich, and most of you reading this are, then it is time to duck. You are about to be hit by one of the biggest marketing and advertising blitzes ever to be mounted by the banks to part you from your money.
Most of the big US and European players are either ready, or planning, to pounce on you with their whizzy new online 'wealth management' services. They are after the 30 million people in Europe who own assets between £100,000 (�,000) and £1m - and that is just the middle market. There are around six million of you in the UK, another six million in Germany and five million in France. Those with liquid assets over £1m add up to another eight million worldwide. Then there are the 55,000 or so with cyberspace-style wealth - those with $33m each. No wonder the banks are like cats with cream. The numbers are staggering - by 2004 private banking assets worldwide are forecast to rise above £44 trillion.
