Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp.’s private-banking arm is considering adding between 20 and 30 relationship managers this year for its Greater China team, marking a substantial expansion in one of the world’s major wealth centers.
Financial activities in Hong Kong are picking up, while more high-net-worth people are looking to keep assets with a Singapore bank, said Rickie Chan, who oversees Bank of Singapore’s Greater China market. His Hong Kong-based team is on track to boost client assets by 50% by the end of 2026, a target the former Credit Suisse executive set after joining the firm about a year ago.
The push by OCBC’s unit comes at a time when UBS Group AG and DBS Group Holdings Ltd. are also adding private bank headcount in Hong Kong to attract rich clients. Despite slower economic growth and a deep property crisis, China is seen as having long-term potential for wealth managers. Bank of Singapore boosted its Hong Kong headcount by close to 30% last year.
“The growth potential for Greater China is still huge,” Chan, who spent nearly a decade at Credit Suisse, said in an interview. “If we can get quality people, we want to hire 20 to 30 bankers this year.”
Chan’s oversight expanded in February when he took charge of relationship managers covering Chinese clients in Singapore, in addition to those in Hong Kong.
Bank of Singapore’s Greater China team is its largest after Southeast Asia in terms of assets under management. The firm’s AUM topped $120 billion as at the end of 2024, according to people with knowledge of the matter, and its headcount is close to 500. Clients can opt to park their assets in Singapore and Hong Kong.
OCBC’s new fund flows in its wealth management units totaled about S$21 billion in 2024, Chief Executive Officer Helen Wong told analysts during the bank’s results call in February. A spokesperson for the firm declined to comment on the breakdown for the private bank unit.
Hong Kong has been rolling out policies to attract the wealthy with tax concessions and residency plans as it recovers after years of political turmoil, strict Covid restrictions, and an exodus of people. The push could help the city to nearly double its private wealth assets under management to $2.3 trillion by 2030 as Chinese seek offshore diversification, according to Bloomberg Intelligence.
Bank of Singapore is seeing a pick up in trading by clients in Greater China, as well as new account openings as rich individuals are attracted to Singapore for asset diversification purposes, Chan said. “This is not a one or two-year phenomena, but could be a decades-long trend,” he said.
This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.
