Q1: Private banks in Asia have faced a number of challenges in 2024, from uncertainty around interest rate cuts in the US to volatile markets and geopolitical tensions. Considering this background, how did you safeguard AUM and revenue streams in 2024, while also attracting net new assets? What will your strategy be in 2025?

The strategy of our Global Private Bank can be summarised in three areas: growing and developing our teams and people; enhancing our client capabilities, especially for UHNW clients; and staying focused on service excellence and platform development.

In line with this, we have successfully hired strong RMs and managers, significantly enhanced our client offerings, and worked with our corporate bank to offer holistic personal and institutional solutions to our clients.

We manage our RMs using a balanced scorecard that spans financial and non-financial metrics, and within financials, we are focused not just on revenues but also on asset growth. As a result, we have seen strong new client onboarding, deeper client engagement, and record financial results. Our strategy in 2025 will remain consistent with client-centricity at its core, and with focused execution we will continue to drive growth next year and beyond.

Q2: China’s announcement in 2024 of a series of monetary and fiscal stimulus measures has helped re-energise the world’s second-largest economy, bringing optimism and momentum to the market. What opportunities has this created for your bank? How would you advise clients when it comes to investing in China?

We see China’s stimulatory policies so far as stabilising and removing some of the downside risks to the economy, rather than initiating a sharp turnaround in the economy’s fortunes. The property sector is still contracting, just not as quickly as it was. Meanwhile, the economy is bordering on deflation, which means concerns about a potential debt-deflation cycle are never far away. The likelihood of more aggressive US trade policies in the short term adds to the view that the outlook is not all rosy.

The good news is the authorities appear to be on the verge of announcing a significant fiscal stimulus in order to boost the domestic economy. Given that markets are still undervalued and under-owned, this could lead to further strong gains in the coming months. However, we continue to have a neutral allocation to China equities within a global equity allocation as we are not convinced that this will lead to sustained outperformance.

Q3: In 2024, the private banking industry witnessed organisational restructurings, leadership reshuffles, as well as heavyweight departures. Looking forward, what are the priorities for your private bank in terms of attracting and retaining talent across the front, middle, and back office? What measures do you have in place for managing personnel transitions?

Our goal is to be among the top three wealth managers in Asia. We will accelerate our affluent business through investments across frontline hiring, wealth solutions and advisory capabilities, cross-border propositions, and multi-channel digital journeys.

In 2023 and 2024, we invested in bankers across our four wealth hubs in Hong Kong, Singapore, the UAE and the UK. Besides building up our frontline capabilities, we were also intentional in synchronising front to back, including adding subject matter experts globally in Wealth Planning & Family Advisory, Lending Solutions, Investments Management, COO and Marketing.

We will continue to grow our frontline capacity over the next five years across our wealth hubs via a combination of a targeted external sourcing strategy to attract the best talent in each market as well as building internal talent through skills-based deployment.

Our approach is backed by a compelling employee value proposition comprising best practices around talent management, skills based organisational efforts, fair pay principles with direct linkage to performance, and grooming our leadership team. We are focused on nurturing a business-centric and holistic experience for our colleagues.

Q4: The wealth management industry is increasingly subject to oversight and regulation, with this issue once again being brought into the spotlight with high-profile compliance breaches in the last couple of years. How are you addressing regulatory challenges while minimising the impact on clients?

Specifically in the context of regulatory breaches in relation to anti-money laundering controls, we don’t see the regulations and steps taken by the regulators as challenges. It is extremely important that we prevent criminals from using the financial services ecosystem to launder the proceeds of their crimes.

At Standard Chartered we are client-focused and risk-aware. Knowing our clients is not only necessary from a regulatory perspective but also critical so we can build a trusted relationship to help our clients manage their wealth and financial goals.

In the past, clients would find it intrusive when banks requested documentation proof of their source of wealth. Today, clients understand the value and necessity of this requirement and it would be a surprise to them if their bank didn’t ask these questions. To ensure we provide great client service, we continually enhance our processes to facilitate a thorough yet seamless client experience.

Q5: The Middle East, in particular the United Arab Emirates, has come onto the radar of many private banks as clients increasingly seek global diversification. What potential opportunities do you see in the region for private wealth clients, as well as in the Middle East-to-Asia wealth corridor in general? How else are you adapting to clients’ increasing requirements for global services and offerings?

Amid the extraordinary growth trends in the Middle East, we are seeing the wealthy population turning to more sophisticated wealth solutions globally. They are looking to banks to support them with bespoke financial solutions, including international investment opportunities, cross-border wealth management, and wealth planning and advisory.

Besides an open architecture investment platform that offers a range of solutions from the best asset houses, we also offer our UHNW clients access to private markets – where we carefully curate and craft solutions to suit the needs of these sophisticated clients.

Our global network and deep-rooted presence in more than 50 markets, coupled with four wealth hubs across the UAE, Jersey, Singapore and Hong Kong, allow us to service clients’ domestic and international wealth needs. In particular, the large community of Global Indians in the UAE benefit from our UAE-India and UAE-Singapore corridor to seamlessly manage their individual wealth and business financial needs. Similarly, the growing Global Chinese community in the Middle East leverages our Middle East-Asia corridor to manage their multi-market wealth needs.

At the same time, we have a global team of wealth planning and family advisory experts across our wealth hubs, including in the UAE, who understand and work with UHNW clients and their families on their legacy planning needs.

Q6: With wealth clients being increasingly sophisticated, tech-savvy, and time-conscious, they are demanding more expertise and capabilities when it comes to discretionary portfolio management offerings. How is this reflected in your long-term approach to DPM in Asia and efforts to deepen client penetration of these solutions?

We have a proven track record in managing Discretionary Portfolios (DPM) for the last 20 years. In recent years, we have observed a growing willingness among clients, especially in Asia, to delegate a larger portion of their wealth to professionals, recognising the value of disciplined investment processes and access to institutional-grade expertise.

In 2024, we made significant investments to enhance our DPM capabilities for our private banking clients. These included strengthening our team with additional expertise and upgrading our technology infrastructure to deliver efficient, state-of-the-art portfolio management capabilities. These initiatives have bolstered our ability to meet the evolving demands of our sophisticated and time-conscious clients.

One of our key successes has been the distribution of our Signature CIO Funds, a unitised DPM offering which factors in our house views, and has resonated well with clients seeking convenience and alignment with Standard Chartered’s global investment strategy.

Additionally, we see increasing demand from UHNW clients for bespoke multi-asset and fixed-income portfolios. These tailored solutions provide flexibility and customisation while leveraging our robust asset allocation frameworks and research capabilities. Our unique proposition is the ability to combine our house views with the single security selection capabilities of external boutique managers in a seamless way.

Looking ahead, our focus remains on tailoring to meet clients’ needs by continuing to deliver innovative solutions, leveraging technology for better client engagement, and building trust through superior performance and personalised service.