The Hindu Business Line : Barclays to begin private banking biz

Mumbai, Sept.1 Barclays PLC said on Monday that it would start its private banking business in India by the fourth quarter of this calendar year and will hire more professionals here.

To begin with, Barclays will start wealth management service in Mumbai and later in Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai and Kolkata.

Mr Satya Bansal, Chief Executive, Barclays Wealth India, said that in the next six to eight months the wealth management team in India will have more than 100 professionals. As of now, there are 57 professionals in the India team, he said.

Barclays Wealth will focus on high networth individuals (people with £10 million investable assets) and ultra high networth individuals (those with investable assets in excess of £30 million). They will include promoters of large corporate houses, SME owners, corporate professionals, directors and CEOs. “There will be no strict cut-offs but they will definitely be above the mass affluent class,” added Mr Bansal.

This is an under-penetrated segment of the Indian investor community, said Mr Bansal. “This group has approximately $50 billion investable assets which exclude the core promoter holding,” he added.

The Barclays Group has allocated $400 million for the expansion of its global private banking business.

The segment that Barclays Wealth is targeting in India will provide great opportunities for wealth managers in the country. A new report by Barclays Wealth reveals that during volatile conditions, investors in the emerging markets are more likely to increase the level of risk in their portfolios, which shows that investors here regard the current market environment as “one of opportunity, rather than a hindrance”.

Even though Indian investors have a strong “home country bias”, up to 33 per cent investors are willing to increase their allocation to overseas stocks. Also, property still remains a favourite asset class among investors in the emerging markets unlike in most developed markets, the report said.

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