Winners rationale

A fully fledged service proposition, a strong Private Wealth Solutions team of over 260 professionals dedicated to different facets of wealth planning in Asia and over seven decades of walking through succession journeys alongside wealthy families in the region has made HSBC Private Banking the go-to bank for fiduciary advice and services.

2019 was a transformational year as the PWS teams were market-aligned to match the model of the global private bank. Front office staff dedicated over 100 FTE (full-time equivalent) to aligning PWS solutions with the overall private banking strategy. This allowed the bank to support clients in a more coherent manner because the re-aligned PWS teams were supported by experts with deep market knowledge, which resulted in a boost in both AUM and related revenue lines.

Since UHNW families expect a smooth and customised wealth planning experience served by top quality advisers, HSBC Private Banking invests significantly in staff from front to back offices in order to improve their understanding of the changing regulatory environment. In 2019, the team added dedicated family office and philanthropy advisory specialists, while enhancing the service in bespoke advisory solutions for family office, family governance, philanthropy, and probate and estate.

As an independent trustee sat within the global banking group, the PWS team had the discretion to work with advisors and investment managers of the clients’ choice and had at its disposal an extensive network of industry-leading lawyers, accountants and other professionals to deal with any evolving regulatory requirements.

HSBC’s PWS team demonstrated it was able to assist clients to make orderly succession planning early, and was in a position to soothe tensions in wealthy families by upholding the importance of family governance. (And when relationships get rocky, the team would stand as the trustworthy adviser among various stakeholders.)

In 2019, the team managed to resolve disagreements between the first and second generation of a HNW family and tailored a solution with family governance features which was incorporated into a legal structure to preserve both family wealth and harmony. The case demonstrated the family’s level of trust in the bank and allowed the relationship to extend to further generations as a family constitution was created and implemented to educate the third generation on critical family topics.

HSBC Private Banking is Asian Private Banker’s Best Private Bank – Wealth Planning Services for 2019.