The private banking sector of foreign banking companies is considering adding 20 to 30 relationship managers to large Chinese teams, marking a significant expansion of one of the world’s major wealth centers.
Rickie Chan, who is in charge of the big Chinese market of Singapore Bank, said that financial activities in Hong Kong are being accepted, and more high-net-worth individuals want to maintain their assets with Singapore banks. His Hong Kong-based team is expected to increase client assets by 50% between the end of 2026 and the end of 2026, a target of a former Credit Suisse director who joined the company about a year ago.
The OCBC division is pushing at a time when UBS Group AG and DBS Group Holdings Ltd. are also adding private banking staff in Hong Kong to attract wealthy customers. Despite slow economic growth and a deep property crisis, China is considered to have long-term potential for wealth managers. Last year, Singaporean banks increased their Hong Kong boss by nearly 30%.
“The growth potential of big China remains huge,” Chen, who spent nearly a decade in Credit Suisse, said in an interview. “If we can attract quality people, we hope to hire 20 to 30 bankers this year.”
Chan’s oversight continued to expand in February, when he was in charge of the relationship manager for Chinese clients in Singapore, except for Hong Kong.
In terms of assets under management, Singapore Bank’s Big China team is the largest since Southeast Asia. According to people familiar with the matter, the company had AUM above $120 billion by the end of 2024 and its employees were close to 500. Customers can choose to park their assets in Singapore and Hong Kong.
CEO Helen Wong told analysts during the February results call that OCBC’s new fund totaled about S$21 billion in its wealth management division. A spokesperson for the company declined to comment on the private banking sector’s segment.
Hong Kong has been developing policies to attract the rich through tax incentives and residence programs as it recovers after years of political unrest, strict common restrictions and people emerge. According to Bloomberg Intelligence, this push could help the city almost double its management’s private wealth assets by 2030 as China seeks to diversify at sea.
Chan said Singaporean banks are trading clients in Big China, and the wealthy are attracted to Singapore’s new accounts open as an asset diversification purpose. “It’s not a one- or two-year phenomenon, but it could be a decades-long trend,” he said.
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