A spokesperson confirmed the bank is “changing the operating model in India for the private bank".

The lender, which makes most of its money in Asia, has five booking centres with relationships managers and investment advisers in each of these locations. But from next year Standard Chartered will move to what they believe is "a more efficient model".

This will involve creating two centres of expertise in Mumbai and Delhi. Some relationship managers and investment advisers will relocate to these two centres over time. The booking centres in Chennai, Bangalore and Kolkata will remain, with adequate staff to man them, said the spokesman. He said there will be no redundancies. 

“This will allow us to invest in training and up-skilling staff. Relationship managers will fly out to other centres as and when clients want them to. This does not mean a change from a client's perspective whatsoever,” said the spokesman.

He added: “The business is very robust, we are seeing strong growth. Since the private bank's launch in 2007, we have tripled our size and grown to be one of the top three private banks in India. We are aggressively hiring and aim to increase our relationship managers across private banking, priority banking, SME banking and wealth managers by over 25 per cent over 2012-2013.”

The news is unsurprising given the poor first half year results from the private bank’s India operations. The bank took a hit from a slowdown in its India operations, which saw operating profit slump by 39 per cent to $378 million during the first half of 2011, for the first time in around six years.

"Whilst we have seen a further slowdown in India, and Korea remains muted, we continue to see strong performances in Hong Kong and Singapore," said the bank in November.