Winners rationale

With close to two-thirds of family businesses in the region expected to undergo succession in the next five-to-ten years — and amid an increasingly convoluted tax and regulatory environment — private banks with deep-rooted family relationships and a wealth planning offering that covers the full gamut of needs stand to gain. In this period of flux, HSBC Private Banking demonstrated that it remains a cut above the rest in terms of providing fiduciary advice and services, leveraging its massive regional footprint and almost a century’s worth of global expertise to help clients navigate some of the most delicate stages of their lives.

To tackle the region’s growing demand for wealth planning services, HSBC has built a Private Wealth Solutions (PWS) team of around 380 experts, of which, more than 260 are based in Asia. These experts continually undergo a PWS Development Programme, which ramps up the knowledge of staff as regulatory changes sweep the globe.

This vast and growing pool of knowledge has allowed HSBC to deal with the most complex of asset structures for the region’s worldly clients — cases that other institutions may shy away from due to the resource-heavy intricacies inherent to such undertakings. With this capacity, the fully-fledged PWS team has greatly bolstered the value proposition of HSBC Private Banking, creating opportunities for it to service clients on a group-connected level.

Moreover, as PWS is an independent entity within the HSBC family, its staff are free to work with clients’ external advisors in order to achieve client goals — marking a commitment to truly placing client needs first.

Of course, this commitment is not without a clear understanding and appreciation for family governance. The bank is well aware of the role that governance architecture plays in enhancing family harmony, and has a family governance advisory team on hand to help clients ensure that wealth survives across generations.

Last year, the team successfully persuaded a patriarch to establish investment portfolios for his next generation under the umbrella of the family trust. Impressive to the Judges was the fact that the structure propagated a culture of responsibility for the family members, providing them a taste of managing great wealth under the expert guidance of the wealth planning team, before having to do so independently once the wealth has been transferred to them.

With an unrivalled understanding of wealthy families in Asia and a deep talent pool to work from, HSBC has provided the region’s clients with much-needed wealth planning services and, perhaps more importantly, peace of mind.

HSBC Private Banking is Asian Private Banker’s Best Private Bank – Wealth Planning Services for 2018.