Wooing Wealth: 'Family office' Feeling is Key to luring HNW: The $136 trillion in wealth transfer that's expected to occur is alluring to banks. But to attract it, they need to link with businesses that advise families-and get their CRM houses in order.

Banks and brokers will fail to crack the retail gem that is the high-net worth investor unless they seek unprecedented partnerships with real estate, tax and law experts. They also should spend wisely on cleansing and integrating disparate back-office databases so they can offer complete arrays of financial services-akin to the family office-to this most demanding customer.

It's the nimble ability of the family office, experts say, to offer a full-spectrum of highly personalized and trusted services, whether it's in tax or estate planning, real estate or investing, that major banks and brokers must emulate, and for which they're essentially competing against in the grab for wealth management dollars.

The challenges go beyond writing …