The private banking arm of French lender Societe Generale (SocGen) plans to launch full private banking services in China in the first half of next year, its chief executive said on September 17.
With its China business and growth in other Asian markets such as India, SG's private banking assets in Asia would rise by over 15 percent next year, SG Private Banking Global Chief Executive Daniel Truchi said in an interview.
"With China coming up, India picking up very strongly and Japan a very successful operation now, we will have three major growth drivers apart from Singapore and Hong Kong," Truchi told Reuters.
Truchi, who was in Singapore for a banking conference, said the private bank was managing nearly $20 billion in assets for its Asian clients - around 20 percent of the assets it manages for clients outside its home market.
SocGen's private banking arm managed 73.8 billion euro ($102.4 billion) for global clients at the end of June, according to its Web Site. Truchi said this figure excludes what it manages in France.
He said the private bank would have a "soft" opening in China later this year with a small team of private bankers. This would be expanded into a full-fledged operation next year in "either the first or second quarter".
China, with an economy expanding at 10.5 percent in 2006, saw a 7.8 percent rise in the number of millionaires to 345,000, according to the World Wealth Report by Merrill Lynch and Capgemini. SocGen, which competes with banks such as UBS and HSBC, targets individuals who have about $1 million in assets to manage.
Comments
Comments are closed.