The bank is aiming to expand its physical footprint, including in the private banking area in Singapore.

HSBC is planning to open three wealth centres in Singapore by the first three months of next year, expanding its investment fivefold in its physical network, the UK/Hong Kong-listed group said yesterday. 

The centres will be in the Asian city-state’s central business district and the east and west region of Singapore, HSBC said. 

The bank, which said it has doubled its technology investments in Singapore over the past five years, also intends to boost the number of staff in client-facing roles by more than a third by 2028.

“We want to be the wealth manager of choice for affluent Singaporeans and international professionals,” Ashmita Acharya, head of wealth and personal banking for HSBC Singapore, said.

HSBC’s wealth and personal banking arm includes global private banking, along with retail banking, HSBC Life and global asset management.

In Singapore, HSBC said it logged a 76 per cent year-on-year rise in new-to-bank-international clients in 2023. HSBC also said that it has logged double-digit growth in client numbers in Singapore for its high net worth and mass-affluent segment between 2019 and 2012 – this growth rate continued last year. 

Photo – left to right: Wong Kee Joo, chief executive of HSBC Singapore, and Ashmita Acharya, head of wealth and personal banking, HSBC Singapore.

Among recent changes, the global private banking arm has enhanced its HNW services to enable institutional family offices to have better market access and execution services to meet wealth transfer, legacy planning and more complex investment needs.