STANDARD Chartered Bank plans to market its top-end private banking services in 10 Chinese cities by 2011, a senior bank executive said yesterday.
The bank is targeting clients who have net worth exceeding US$1 million for its special services. The lender launched services yesterday in Shanghai, after kicking off the program in Beijing in late June.
The bank has big ambitions to expand its personal banking services on the Chinese mainland, targeting clients at the top of the pyramid.
Stephen Richards Evans, managing director and head of private banking for Standard Chartered in China, said the lender wants to capitalize on a rapidly growing economy that is said to create more than 70 millionaires a day.
Standard Chartered plans to double its client-relationship managers to 300 worldwide in about 18 months, and growth in China is expected to track the same pace, Evans said.
The bank declined to give the current figure.
Top-end skill-intensive services are "all about advice," Evans said, adding that the bank is gearing up to attract more experienced talent.
The bank already offers high-end services in 10 markets globally in an investment measured by billions of US dollars and will put more into China step by step, said Christine Ip, head of China consumer banking at Standard Chartered.
The bank has drawn significant demand from entrepreneurs, industrialists and senior management people for the services in Beijing, said Evans, who declined to give specific client figures.
The bank has a broad spectrum of clients, reflecting the global trend that the age of the wealthy is declining, he said.
The Chinese mainland was home to 345,000 people with a net worth of at least US$1 million in 2006, up from 320,000 in 2005, according to a report by Capgemini SA and Merrill Lynch & Co.
Citibank, BNP Paribas and Deutsche Bank are already offering private banking services in China.