“Our approach is led by solutions and not by product,” Mr Satya Narayan Bansal, CEO, Barclays Wealth (India) said, explaining his company's wealth management strategy. In an interview with Business Line, he also shares his insights on the changing investment behaviour of India's wealthy.

Isn't the private banking space getting crowded? How do you differentiate yourself from competition?

India is one of the fastest growth markets across the globe and has huge untapped potential. So, there is sufficient scope to grow the market and take a larger share of it. Hence, competition to a certain extent doesn't affect much. Besides, there is a need to educate and engage with the prospective clients, as some of them are covered by the product distribution businesses such as mutual funds, brokerages, etc. But then these do not typically have a holistic advisory platform. So, what is more important here is the relevance of the private banking player to the client. Increasingly, clients are also seeing if, and how much value we can add.

We believe we have no product to offer; but we have the capacity to identify, create or source the product either within Barclays' world or from outside of it. We don't have mutual fund business or PE fund or real estate fund in India. We have an open architecture by which we source these. So, our approach is led by solutions and not by product.

How have you customised your offering for the Indian market?

While Barclays Wealth does not have a strict cut-off for HNIs (high net-worth individuals) or ultra HNIs, we focus on business owners such as promoters of large corporate houses, mid-market companies or growth companies. We also target professionals who are making money not only by remuneration but also by owning stock options, those with inherited wealth as well as celebrities. That said all our products and processes are localised. We have ten comprehensive local offerings and our solutions are mostly rupee-denominated. Only the best practices and soft skills have been brought from the global offering.

So, we divide our offerings into three broad categories. First, investment management, which may be fully discretionary/ advisory/ execution only type. The second category is credit solutions, which take care of the liquidity needs of our clients. For instance, if a client wants to invest in a business or has some lifestyle needs, we help them create liquidity against their assets. The third offering is succession planning and wealth advisory. This may also involve philanthropy solutions – creating some structure to take care of philanthropic activities such as education, health care and rural development. Succession planning also involves distribution of assets also between family members.

Since you have operations across the globe, how would you rate the risk appetite of Indians?

It would be difficult to generalise, but Indian clients typically have a significant home bias. Most of them believe that Indian markets offer a great opportunity for growth investing, be it equity markets, private equity or getting a yield on debt. Another specific trait that can be observed after the 2008 meltdown is that earlier clients used to look at the risk-reward pay off or mark-to-market volatility for individual components of the portfolio. But now they look at the volatility and risk-reward at the portfolio level. As for risk appetite, I would think there's been a slight improvement in it. The very fact that now clients are talking at a portfolio level now highlights this. But, broadly, if we were to compare the risk appetite of Indian clients with the global ones, Indians would score higher. But, then Indian clients are not leveraged as significantly also.

Do you also offer overseas investment options? What about alternative investments?

As per current regulations, we are not allowed to offer overseas management. But if clients avail it independent of us, we help them in setting up their bank accounts as per the liberalized remittance scheme. But a good number of our clients have bought properties outside India — in Singapore and London.

Though alternative investment is an expanded domain overseas, in India it is largely restricted to private equity and some amount of early-stage investing. We have a comprehensive offering – both in alternative investments in real estate and private equity. We also facilitate client-to-client deals. For instance, recently we did a deal in the renewable energy space where a client was looking for a project partner while another client was keen to invest in the space. I would term even these as alternative investments, as it is effectively outside the normal investment cycle.

Related Topics