SINGAPORE/MUMBAI, October 10 (Reuters) – The global private banking model based on advice and long-term returns is struggling to gain traction in emerging Asia, where rich investors treat private banks like brokers and take big trading risks.

Unlike in the West, where many wealthy customers entrust their money to fund managers, most Asian clients are reluctant to pay for advice and prefer to make their own investment decisions, delegates at the Reuters Global Wealth Management Summit said.

''Asian clients seem to be more secretive about their overall wealth.

They tend to spread their assets over many accounts ... As a result there is less of a holistic approach to private banking and more a focus on specific transactions,'' said Kees Stoute, managing director of Swiss boutique EFG Bank in Singapore.

''It seems to take longer to build a real relationship of trust compared to what we see in the West,'' he added.

Analysts say Western banks such as UBS, currently the largest player in Asia, need to improve the advice offered to clients and adjust pay structures to reward client performance rather than product sales in order to build long-term relationships.

Many private banks are still too focused on pushing products, said Justin Ong, head of PricewaterhouseCoopers' Asia Pacific wealth management practice in Singapore.

Banks need to emphasis the specialized services they can provide such as setting up trusts and helping with succession planning -- a looming and huge business opportunity as first generation Asian entrepreneurs age, consultants say.

''The challenge is to provide real quality advice that will make the difference,'' said Ong.

Credit Suisse, Julius Baer and boutiques such as Pictet & Cie are doing relatively well in Asia because they are less product focused, bankers say.

Many wealthy investors suffered heavily when financial markets collapsed in 2008. In Asia, where banks emerged relatively unscathed from the crisis and most government and household finances remain sound, the number of millionaires still fell 14 percent while their wealth dropped by a higher 22 percent, according to a Capgemini and Merrill Lynch report.

Bankers said the sharp decline in Asian wealth was due to the higher level of risk taken. Asia's rich think more about wealth accumulation than preservation, unlike the third or fourth generation millionaires of Europe and North America.

''It is very common for us in Asia to have a client who is CEO of a large corporation or a billionaire who takes personal decisions in FX or trades FX actively or trades fixed-income or whatever he is investing in,'' said Debashish Dutta Gupta, Citigroup head of investments for Asia-Pacific wealth management.

''Asians are much more equity centric and foreign exchange centric than people in the West,'' he added.

In India for instance, many of the newly rich acquired their wealth during the stock market boom between 2003 and 2007 and they continue to chase high-risk, high-return investments.

''In their mind a double-digit return has to be achieved,'' said Richa Karpe, who advises India's super-rich families and those having at least $15 million in investable assets as director of multi-family office Altamount Capital.

''The risks are not fully appreciated sometimes in a lot of products. So while you can explain to them about the risk I think they are still driven by the return number,'' she said.

In contrast many rich investors in the West remain cautious about investing in stocks, or in fact anything other than Treasury bills, bankers in Geneva and Boston say.