The bank has launched the "Pegasus Series" offering, a route into private investment funds.

Standard Chartered has launched a programme that gives private bank clients a conduit into investment vehicles holding private equity, opening the door to clients normally not considered large enough to enter the fray.

The rollout of the Pegasus Series offering comes amid volatile equity markets and is pitched at high net worth clients able to take a long-term view and spread sources of risk, the bank said.

Asked by this publication for details on how the programme works, Standard Chartered said that in terms of the types of investment funds clients are getting access to, it is looking at a range of opportunities including opportunistic investments arising from current market volatility, across regions like the US and Europe.

As far as investment sizes are concerned, the minimum size is $250,000, significantly lower than the institutional threshold of $10 to $50 million to gain the accessibility to partner with world-class private equity firms typically, the bank said.

“Over the last two to three years, we have seen growing interest among our clients - particularly family offices across Asia - in private equity as it becomes increasingly challenging to earn a decent yield from the public markets in today’s low-interest rates environment,” said Anna Marrs, chief executive for commercial and private banking.

“Not only are we able to provide this access at a substantially lower investment point, our clients can also leverage our partnerships with best-in-class managers to capitalise on opportunities that typically require a complex knowledge of the market,” said Stanley Sia, head of private equity and real estate, group wealth management, at Standard Chartered.

Marrs said the programme is also aimed at entrepreneurs who already are willing to shoulder risk in their businesses and who can use the investments to spread and grow their own portfolios.