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Standard Chartered is this week launching a private bank aimed at the millions of newly rich in the Middle East and Asia.
The operation, for customers with more than $1 million to invest, will have outposts in Dubai, Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Seoul, Singapore, Delhi and Mumbai, as well as an office in London’s Jermyn Street and one in Jersey.
It plans to expand into another 10 markets over the next three years, probably including Taiwan, Indonesia and Pakistan.
The London-listed international bank has a strong presence in emerging markets and wants to home in on the growing number of people who have joined the ranks of the wealthy.
Standard already has a joint venture with Fleming Family & Partners catering for the super-rich.
There are almost nine million high net worth individuals – defined as US dollar millionaires – around the world and a third are in the Middle East and Asia. Their ranks are growing at a rate of 8-9 per cent a year, compared with 6-7 per cent in the US and Europe.
Standard, which plans to increase the number of its private bankers to 450 from 150 in three years, believes that wealthy individuals in the Middle East want different services from their counterparts in the West.
They prefer to invest in domestic markets, whereas private banking in the US and Europe is often based around offshore investment. Wealthy Asians tend to hold a high proportion of their assets in cash, compared with Americans and Europeans who seek higher returns on the stock market.
The London operation will target customers of Middle Eastern, Asian and African origin who are based in the UK but retain ties with their country of origin.
A recent Merrill Lynch Capgemini Wealth Report estimated that the wealth of rich people around the world will grow at an annual rate of six per cent to reach $44.6 trillion by 2010.
Peter Flavel, global head of the private bank, said: “The market is very fragmented. The top 10 private banks only account for about seven per cent of the pool of money between them. There is a great opportunity.’”
By Ruth Sunderland
