ABSTRACT
The detachment from the financial aspect of wealth management to focus on exploring clients' privacy leads to an unusual hierarchy of tasks. This chapter highlights the fact that the emergence of wealth management as a profession demonstrates the impossibility of establishing a stable boundary between itself and asset management. It shows that the use of a professional rhetoric that focuses on clients' plans gives advisers various advantages on the wealth management market. In the 1980s, wealth management, usually called private banking at the time, was strictly focused on asset management and was quite relegated in banks. In the United States, financial planners, who only deal with wealth strategies, have managed to make their profession an organized one by requiring certification. The chapter explains how the use of a wealth-planning rhetoric fluctuates depending on the kind of firm offering wealth management services and with gender norms.
