British bank Standard Chartered is this week launching a private bank aimed at the millions of newly rich in Asia and the Middle East.
The operation, for customers with more than US$1 million ($1.33 million) to invest, will have outposts in Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Seoul, Singapore, Delhi,
Mumbai and Dubai, as well as an office in London's Jermyn St and one in Jersey.
It plans to expand into a further 10 markets over the next three years, probably including Taiwan, Indonesia and Pakistan.
The London-listed international bank wants to home in on the growing number of people who have joined the ranks of the wealthy.
Standard already has a joint venture with Fleming Family & Partners catering for the super-rich.
There are almost nine million high net worth individuals - defined as US dollar millionaires - around the world and a third are in Asia and the Middle East. Their ranks are growing at a rate of 8 to 9 per cent a year, compared with 6 to 7 per cent in the US and Europe.
Standard, which plans to raise the number of its private bankers to 450 from 150 in three years, believes that wealthy individuals in Asia and the Middle East want different services from their counterparts in the West.
They prefer to invest in domestic markets, whereas private banking in the US and Europe is often based around offshore investment. Wealthy Asians tend to hold a high proportion of their assets in cash, compared with Americans and Europeans who seek higher returns on the stock market.
The London operation will target customers of Asian, Middle Eastern and African origin who are based in Britain but retain ties with their country of origin.
A recent Merrill Lynch Capgemini Wealth Report estimated that the wealth of rich people around the world would grow at an annual rate of 6 per cent to reach US$44.6 trillion by 2010.
Peter Flavel, global head of the private bank, said: "The top 10 private banks only account for about 7 per cent of the pool of money between them. There is a great opportunity in our backyard."
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