Call us sentimental old traditionalists, but we are rather worried about the outlook for Raphaels Bank, that venerable London private bank.
The firm can trace its ancestry back to 1787 when it was founded by Raphael Raphael, a double-Dutchman as it were, who moved to London from Amsterdam.
Although not as well-known as the much older Coutts and C. Hoare, Raphaels still has an honourable history as the second-oldest independent bank in the UK.
The bank prospered mightily during the Napoleonic Wars and was also enriched by the way that successive generations of Raphaels joined the family banking business....
