British banking major HSBC Holdings Plc announced to about 100 wealthy Indians at a recent meeting held in Mumbai that it is returning to private banking in India, where it exited about eight years ago.
Over dinner served by the chef of Odette, a three-Michelin-star restaurant in Singapore, the bank’s wealthy clients who flew in from Dubai and Hong Kong, mingled with HSBC’s local customers at the meet, Bloomberg reported.
“Today, the South Asia and Southeast Asia region put together is the rising star of global wealth,” Nuno Matos, HSBC’s global head of wealth and personal banking, said in an interview with Bloomberg. “India is critical for our leadership push in wealth in Asia.”
However, HSBC’s efforts to convince prospective Indian clients that its wealth management services in the country will not make a retreat again are a linchpin for its ambitious plans there.
The firm saw invested assets in India more than triple in 2022 from a year ago, and expects this to continue growing at a fast pace, according to Matos.
It also grew its non-resident Indian customers nine percent over the same period.
HSBC is reportedly planning to recruit more than two dozen wealth bankers for this fresh effort.
The optimism toward expanding in this market marks a departure from previous skepticism that had prompted firms like UBS Group AG and Morgan Stanley to quit the private banking business in India.
With wealth now booming, global banks like Julius Baer Group Ltd. are once again training their sights on servicing the Indian rich.
Julius Baer, which moved to a new office in New Delhi this month, aims to double headcount and triple assets under management in the country within the next five years.
At HSBC, where Asia contributed the majority of net new money in the first quarter, the lender is betting on its global heft to get ahead in the South Asian country.
Businesses in India want to make acquisitions overseas, and some of the 32 million expat Indians need wealth management services, according to Matos.
Its India private banking operation is aimed at professionals, entrepreneurs and their families with investable assets of more than $2 million.
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