Standard Chartered in Hiring Push to Grow Private Banking

The bank is on a recruitment spree in Hong Kong and Singapore as it hopes to increase its private banking assets by 50 percent to $100 million in the next three to five years.

The U.K.-based bank will be hiring 30 to 40 private bankers per year in Hong Kong and Singapore, where it derives most of its revenue, to bolster its 300-strong team of relationship managers over the next two to three years as it hopes to grow its private banking assets to $100 billion from $65 billion currently.

That makes us meaningful internally for the group, that makes us a meaningful player in this landscape. Hitting $100 billion can give us credibility internally, help us to attract talent, Standard Chartered’s global head for private banking and wealth management, Didier von Daeniken, said in an interview.

Competition for the region’s growing number of ultra-high net worth (UNHW) and high net worth individuals is stiff. Standard Chartered’s $65 billion in private banking assets trails global powerhouses UBS’ $2.3 trillion and Credit Suisse’s $770 billion, but the unit plans to leverage the bank’s corporate and institutional clients in Asia and other emerging markets where it has existing banking networks to hit the $100 billion mark, the report noted.

Standard Chartered’s private banking business targets individuals with at least $5 million in investable assets. The unit makes up for only 3.8 percent of Standard Chartered’s total profit before tax for the first half of 2019, Reuters reported. But $100 million, this represents a marked improvement from a $5-million loss for the same period the year before.