Consumers rank reputations of regional bank's wealth-management divisions. Wealthy consumers rate BB&T Wealth Management as the most the most prestigious regional-bank affiliated wealth-management firm, according to an online survey by the Luxury Institute, a New York-based market-research firm.

After BB&T Wealth Management, part of Winston-Salem, N.C.-based BB&T Corporation, the top brands among regional-bank wealth managers are (in alphabetical order): Fifth Third Private Client, Harris Private Bank, La Salle Bank Wealth Management Group, National City Private Client Group, PNC Advisors, SunTrust Private Wealth Management and US Bank Private Client Group, says the survey.

All down

But the study suggests that consumer sentiment regarding wealth managers has declined this year.

"Regional Wealth Management firms have not been spared the significant downdraft in ratings of the overall wealth-management category in 2008," says the Luxury Institute's CEO Milton Pedraza. "Last year the benchmark score for this category was 6.56, with the first-place firm receiving a score of 6.88; this year the category scored 5.60 with first place at 5.99."

The Luxury Institute conducts two kinds of survey.

Brand status surveys, like this one about regional-bank wealth managers, probes the bare reputation of brand names among affluent consumers. Respondents are given a list of brand names and asked to rank them according to their impressions of the relative value of their brands. The respondent's personal experience with the brands in question may not be a factor, nor is there an opportunity for a respondent to nominate firms that aren't on the list.

For the Luxury Institute's Experience surveys, wealthy consumers are asked only about firms they've done business with in the previous year. And only firms with a statistically significant number of present (or recently past) users among the respondent pool makes the list.

The Luxury Institute bases its ranking of regional-bank linked wealth managers' brands on a national sample of 551 wealthy U.S. consumers with an average income of $751,000 and average net-worth of $13.9 million. The results were weighted to match demographic and net-worth profiles of the same audience according to the Federal Reserve's latest Survey of Consumer Finances. -FWR

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