Standard Chartered eyes growth in private banking with hiring spree
Standard Chartered is set to embark on a recruitment spree in Asia as part of a plan to grow its private banking assets to roughly $100bn (£82bn).
Over the next two to three years the lender is set to hire 30-40 private bankers every year to bulk up its private bank assets by 50 per cent, Standard Chartered’s global head for private banking and wealth management Didier von Daeniken told Reuters.
Daeniken said: “Our ambition is to see us cross the $100bn mark. That makes us meaningful internally for the group, that makes us a meaningful player in this landscape…Hitting $100bn can give us credibility internally, help us to attract talent.”
The lender’s senior executive added that the private banking unit had come a long way “but the task before us is as difficult because we really have to maintain the momentum in a difficult market environment.”
With most of the new jobs expected in Hong Kong and Singapore, the London-based bank is planning to lure in more of the firm’s corporate and institutional banking clients within Asia.
“With $65bn we are definitely not among the largest, but we are part…of a company with a large balance sheet, with an unmatched presence locally in all the markets, which really matters when you cover the emerging markets,” Daeniken added.
The comments come several weeks after the lender posted a three per cent rise in pre-tax profits to £1.99bn, topping analyst estimates.
Standard Chartered warned that the current trade war between China and the US would “continue to reverberate” in 2019.
However, chief executive Bill Winters said in an earnings call that the impact of the trade friction had been “pretty limited” so far.