Private banks that once provided a shelter for the cash of the rich are finding demand for a different kind of service: helping their clients to give it away.

Spurred on by high-profile philanthropic gestures from across the Atlantic — not least the decision last year by Warren Buffett to hand most of his $40 billion (£21 billion) fortune to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation — a new generation of wealthy Britons is channelling its cash into good causes.

And it is private banks, the keepers of their assets, that are filling that brief by setting up philanthropy divisions. These were once the preserve of their large US counterparts, but London-based banks are getting in on the act. Coutts, part of Royal Bank of Scotland, was the first to establish a bespoke philanthropy service, 18 months ago. It has been followed by Barclays Wealth and HSBC Private Bank, which set up its own operation last year within its ornate London headquarters.

“What we have seen over the last 12 to 18 months is an accelerating interest in philanthropy from private banks,” said Nigel Harris, the chief executive of New Philanthopy Capital (NPC), which works with Coutts on advising donors on how best to give.

“They are responding to demand from clients who are showing just as much interest in this area as they do in any other part of their portfolio.” HSBC, which has a history of managing money through charitable trusts, established its own operation, having come to appreciate the complexity of assessing potential recipients of its corporate donations.

Mark McCombe, the chief executive of the private bank, said: “It struck us that if we were facing these issues, many of our clients would be facing them as well.”

He attributes the burgeoning interest in philanthropy to the boom in new wealth in Britain over the past decade from an entrepreneurial class that has moved from becoming asset-rich to cash-rich. Twenty years ago three quarters of the constituents of The Sunday Times Rich List had inherited their wealth. Today self-made millionaires account for that proportion.

In a survey of 250 of its clients last December, Coutts found that 80 per cent of the new philanthropists were aged between 36 and 54. Only 5 per cent were older than 65.

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