Standard Chartered to focus on affluent, SME banking; sees 12-15% SME business growth

Mumbai: Following the recent sale of its personal loan business to Kotak Mahindra Bank, Standard Chartered India is now looking to “double down” on affluent banking, SME (small and medium enterprise) loans, and wealth management, a top official of the bank said.

Aditya Mandloi, managing director and head of wealth and retail banking–India and South Asia, said that the mindsets of resident Indians are changing. “As their affluence increases, their outlook becomes more global. Their needs and wants are going beyond the geographical boundaries of the country,” he said. At the same time, Mandloi added that bank’s global network also allows non-resident Indians to extend their banking relationships to India.

On the SME side, the bank expects growth to be faster, allowing more opportunity to cross-sell and offer wealth management and invest-ment solutions to self-employed individuals and business owners. “If the India economy grows 6-7%, we should be growing 12-15% on the SME side,” Mandloi told Mint at the sidelines of an event to launch the bank’s first international banking centre branch in Mumbai.

The branch will focus on helping affluent and high-net-worth individuals manage their wealth and banking needs across the globe, the bank said in a statement, adding that the scope of these customers has shifted from just NRIs to “global Indians” given the rising global aspirations and outlook of local Indians for their personal, business and wealth requirements.

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The bank aims to address this shift by providing a multi-market gateway for these clients, by leveraging its international wealth centres in Singapore, UAE, Hong Kong, Jersey (UK) and India. This will include investment opportunities, international banking and cross-border wealth and lending solutions.

The bank said that the initiative is being led by a team of highly experienced INSEAD-trained relationship managers based close to where the clients are, supported by a global network of wealth specialists and partners that help clients seamlessly manage their wealth across borders.

Mandloi said that by end-2025, 75% of the bank’s priority relationship managers are expected to have completed the INSEAD programme, with the aim of the growing the number of relationship managers to 950 from around 810 currently. The bank also has “aggressive hiring plans” to take in wealth management specialists in addition to relationship managers.

The foreign bank currently has branches in 42 cities, of which it offers SME solutions via branches in 18 of these cities.

The foreign bank currently offers SME solutions in 18 of the 42 cities in which it has branches. The minimum threshold for the loan segment is around ₹10 lakh, which entails a basic unsecured loan, going up to partly secured trade working capital facilities of up to ₹80 crore, he added.

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Standard Chartered defines the affluent segment as those with an annual income of ₹15 lakh and above, priority segment as ₹30-50 lakh, and private banking of up to around $1 million (about ₹8.5 crore), Mandloi said during a press meet adding that there is work happening to see whether “these thresholds can be moved”.

The bank currently has about 90,000-95,000 retail or individual customers in India and around 27,000 SME customers. It estimates the affluent market size at around 750,000, including both resident and non-resident customers.

The recent sale of the personal business to Kotak Bank for ₹4,100 crore is in-line with the bank’s global strategy of focusing on more high-ticket, affluent segments, Mandloi said.

The bank’s average ticket size for the personal loan business was ₹2.5-3.5 lakh. The portfolio largely comprised relatively small-ticket and small-tenure loans, which are not seen as part of the “core requirement of affluent segment”, the bank said, adding that it will also look at other products such as credit cards and cross-border payments within the ambit of this affluent customer segment.