Standard Chartered Bank looks to raise its wealth management game in India
Mumbai: UK-based Standard Chartered Bank is looking to up its wealth management play in India, hiring more relationship managers and giving a facelift to several branches in a market that has recently attracted strong interest from both global and domestic money managers.
“India is a huge opportunity for the wealth business and in the next decade, the amount of wealth that will get created in India will possibly be the highest in any of our footprints,” Samir Subberwal, global head of wealth solutions, deposits and mortgages, and chief client officer, Standard Chartered Bank, said in an interview on Tuesday. “In India, we are pivoting more towards affluent clients and wealth management.”
According to Subberwal, who transitioned to the current the role in April, the bank will improve the look and feel of its branches in order to handle more affluent clients. The bank, he said, will also hire more relationship managers and wealth advisers and will “materially scale up” the business in India.
“Everybody is talking about wealth, so are we,” said Subberwal.
India is now being seen by many as an upcoming wealth management destination as a result of growing affluence among a cohort of consumers.
Goldman Sachs pointed out in a report in January that the top 4% of the working-age population in India has a per capita income greater than $10,000 per annum, compared to India’s average per capita income of $2,100. The report classified this category as “affluent India”, comprising 44 million working-age population in 2023.
The bank plans to increase the number of relationship managers to around 520, from 400 at present, over the next 12-15 months. Outside of the top metros, from wealth and affluent point of view, the bank will also focus on markets like Ahmedabad, Bhubaneswar, Chandigarh and Jaipur, among others.
“We already have a presence in these markets. We have 100 branches across 42 cities in 19 states, covering 70% of the country’s GDP (gross domestic product),” said Subberwal.
Meanwhile, as part of Standard Chartered Bank’s plan to tap into wealthy Indians, the bank is considering raising the assets under management (AUM) threshold for individuals to become a wealth management customer. “We have not changed these thresholds for 10 years or longer, and now we will also enrich the proposition. It is not just increasing minimum balances, we will also have a proposition that will be far richer than what we offer today.”
India allows foreign banks to operate either as a branch or a wholly-owned subsidiary of the parent. All except two — DBS Bank India and SBM Bank India — work as branches. Per RBI data, Standard Chartered Bank has the largest branch network in India (100) among foreign banks operating as branches, followed by HSBC with 26, Deutsche Bank with 17, and Citibank with 14, as on 31 August.
Apart from resident Indians, the bank also sees opportunity in the Indian diaspora. “So if you imagine our footprint, the number of Indians in the UAE, Singapore, even Hong Kong, there is a large non-resident Indian population,” said Subberwal.
That said, the rise in relationship managers in India ties in with the bank’s global strategy. Bill Winters, group chief executive, Standard Chartered PLC, said on 30 October that over the next five years, the bank will invest around $1.5 billion in relationship managers and investment advisers, as well as enhanced international and digital capabilities, twice of what it had previously planned to invest.
