Banking News
- StanChart to launch private bank
Date: 31-May-2007 Sources: (Shenzhen Daily)
STANDARD Chartered Plc said Tuesday that it will launch its private banking business in 10 global markets including Shanghai and Beijing by the end of next month.
The other locations are Hong Kong, Singapore, Seoul, Mumbai, New Delhi, Dubai, London and Jersey, the bank said in a statement.
Asia-focused Standard Chartered's private banking in the 10 cities will target high net-worth individuals with US$1 million to US$50 million in assets, it said.
'The private bank market in our footprint is large and growing very fast,'Mike DeNoma, group executive director at Standard Chartered, said in the statement.
'It is also a fragmented business providing good opportunities for a bank like Standard Chartered. Eighty percent of the wealth is onshore, playing to our network strength,'he added.
Many global banks, including Citigroup Inc. and France's biggest lender BNP Paribas, have set up private banking businesses in China, where annual economic growth has been running near 10 percent in recent years.
Citigroup's private banking services in China target individuals with a net worth of at least US$10 million, while BNP Paribas and Royal Bank of Scotland, Britain's second-biggest lender, both set a US$1 million minimum threshold for their services.
China has 250,000 millionaire households in U.S. dollar terms, ranking sixth globally, according to a research report by Boston Consulting Group.
Domestic lenders are also planning to launch private banking services in the world's fourth-largest economy, as Chinese financial services consumers look for investment channels offering higher returns than regular bank deposits.
China CITIC Bank, China's seventh-largest lender by assets, plans to launch a private bank in the second half of this year that will cater to individual clients with US$1 million or more to invest, its vice president Cao Tong told reporters in April.
China Merchants Bank, the sixth-largest lender by assets, also plans to launch a private bank this year with a minimum requirement of 5 million yuan (US$650,000) for asset management services, its president Ma Weihua said in March.
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