Why banks see opportunity in advising art collectors

As wealthy Americans increasingly see art as an investment, some banks are taking on a dual role: part wealth manager, part connoisseur.

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The latest example is Bank of America . On Feb. 18, the nation’s second-largest lender unveiled its new art consulting service, which advises clients as they start or expand their collections.

“We really wanted to be able to round out our offering, to be able to support clients regardless of where they are in their collecting journey,” Drew Watson, BofA’s head of art services, told American Banker.

The Charlotte, North Carolina-based bank is far from alone. Citi, Morgan Stanley, UBS, HSBC and other big banks all offer art advisory services. Just last year, Goldman Sachs expanded its art and collectibles business into Asia and the Middle East for the first time.

And BofA itself has long offered an art consignment service, which focuses on clients who are looking to sell art. What’s new about the art consulting service is that it’s focused on buying — something collectors have been doing more often lately.

That’s because since 2023, the high-end art market has been suffering a prolonged correction. In the first half of 2025, the number of public transactions for artworks worth more than $10 million fell by 44% from 2024, and by 72% from 2022, according to a BofA analysis.

This downturn has opened up opportunities for collectors — and for banks ready to advise them.

“Over the past three or four years, we’ve been in more of a buyer’s market than a seller’s market,” BofA’s Watson said. “So this service allows us to maintain a high degree of relevancy to clients regardless of the market cycle.”

The new service caters to clients at BofA’s private bank and its Merrill wealth management division, both of which serve high net worth and ultra-high net worth individuals.

This mega-rich demographic has been rapidly getting richer. Since the first quarter of 2020, the top 0.1% of Americans by wealth have more than doubled their fortunes, from $12.08 trillion to $24.89 trillion in the third quarter of 2025, according to data from the Federal Reserve.

BofA’s new art service pairs wealthy clients with advisors who have deep backgrounds in the art world, including at galleries, auction houses and museums. These consultants work with collectors to determine their goals, introduce them to the right dealers and auction houses, and continuously provide market updates and other key information.

“It’s a highly tailored service that is designed to meet our clients where they are,” Watson said. “People collect for different reasons — sometimes to fill the walls of their home, other times to support working contemporary artists, other times just for pure love of the art objects themselves.”

There is also another reason. In recent years, wealthy Americans have increasingly come to see paintings and sculptures not just as forms of self-expression, but as financial assets. In 2011, 25% of wealth managers offered art-consulting services, according to research by Deloitte. By 2025, that number had risen to 51%.

“Clearly this is an area which is growing significantly in terms of the perception of its importance, among both wealth managers and high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth clients,” Mike Foy, head of wealth intelligence at JD Power, said in an interview.

One benefit of art, Foy said, is that it’s a truly distinct asset class, untethered to more traditional investments. In an era when stocks and bonds often suffer at the same time, that diversification is highly appealing to many investors.”I think a lot of asset classes that traditionally have been perceived to offer diversification benefits are now more correlated than they were historically, so there’s a need to cast a wider net,” Foy said.

In recent months, the art market has shown some signs of recovering. In 2025, the British auction house Christie’s projected $6.2 billion in global sales for the full year, up 6% from 2024.

“We’re coming off of a great fall season,” Sayuri Ganepola, global head of art finance at Christie’s, told American Banker. “We’re hearing all the doom and gloom from beforehand, but we had some great results at the end of last year.”

As business picks back up, Ganepola said, investors’ demand for advice on art has ticked up as well. And like Foy, she’s noticed Americans’ rising interest in art for its financial as well as aesthetic value.

“What we’ve been seeing in our own space is more and more clients over the past couple of years have been proactively seeking out and asking for this type of service,” Ganepola said. “So it’s no surprise that many banks are also positioning themselves similarly to how we have been.”