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Private bankers have done well this year. Whether they’ll see any money as a result of their efforts is another question.

UBS’s results underscore the extent to which private bankers are inhabiting a warmer and friendlier planet than their investment banking colleagues. While UBS’s investment bank lost a mammoth CHF3.7bn in 3Q07, the private bank reeled in CHF$2.4bn. According to research firm Creditsights, the Swiss bank’s global wealth management and business banking division accounted for “almost all UBS’ underlying earnings in 9M07”.

UBS private bankers aren’t the only ones having a good time. Wealth managers at Bank of America, Citigroup and Merrill have also been having a ball.

But they’re liable to feel deflated when it comes to bonus time.

Harry Pilkington, a private banking headhunter at Armstrong International, says there are no indications so far that private bankers will have to subsidize their loss-making fixed income colleagues, but confesses that it might yet happen: "The bonus pools for the wealth management businesses seem to be intact today. But If the fourth-quarter results are bad then the bonus pools could be seriously impacted."

This isn’t likely to warm the cockles of private banking types, given that at UBS, for example, income in the global wealth management and business banking division is up 15% in the first nine months of the year and private bankers are entitled to expect pay to rise commensurately.

Another headhunter says UBS will struggle to retain its private bankers if it doesn’t cough up: “UBS pays all its private bankers on a discretionary basis, which isn’t popular. People are also starting to look at working for smaller firms, where they can offer a more bespoke service.”