HSBC pledges India wealth commitment over Michelin star meal
HSBC Holdings Plc announced to about 100 wealthy Indians 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 Hong Kong and Dubai, mingled with HSBC’s local customers. HSBC’s efforts to convince prospective Indian clients that its wealth management services in the country will not make a retreat again is a linchpin for its ambitious plans there.
“Today, 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 this month in Mumbai. “India is critical for our leadership push in wealth in Asia.” 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 9% over the same period.
HSBC plans to recruit more than two dozen wealth bankers for this fresh effort, people with knowledge of the matter earlier said. 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. India used to be “the gift that never gives,” Rahul Malhotra, the firm’s head of private banking for global India and
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