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SINGAPORE: JPMorgan Chase & Co plans to double the number of private bankers serving Chinese clients from Singapore over the next two years, indicating its ambition to take advantage of the growth of Asia’s second-largest wealth market.
The US bank currently has more than a dozen relationship managers serving Chinese and mainland residents from the city-state, said James Wey, Southeast Asia’s new director of private banking.
“With the rapid creation of wealth in China, insightful advice is needed on how to manage the newly discovered wealth,” he said in an interview.
JPMorgan, which ranks seventh among private banks in Asia excluding China onshore, competes with Credit Suisse Group AG and Morgan Stanley in attracting Chinese entrepreneurs who become billionaires after listing their companies’ shares.
Singapore is popular with the world’s wealthy to park funds, buy property, and set up family offices. While the New York-based bank has a large team of wealth managers in Hong Kong, Singapore is the only Asian hub where clients can register assets.
“Singapore is a natural center for wealth management due to very clear and investor-friendly regulation,” Wey said. “The rich, not just in China, but all over the world, see the country as a stable center.”
The China team is the latest addition to JPMorgan Private Bank in Singapore, which has traditionally focused on local and Indonesian clients and has more than 50 relationship managers, Wey said.
Last week, Wey also announced plans to merge the team that serves the Indian diaspora with those that handle Singaporean residents, effective Dec. 1, he said.
Faster growth
While the private bank will expand all its teams in Singapore, the growth rate of the China group will be faster given that it is the smallest and was established less than two years ago, he said.
“Many big Chinese companies are using Singapore as their international headquarters,” Wey said when asked about target customers.
“With that comes a large number of older people who have concentrated their wealth. They see how to build that in a smart way for generations to come. “
Among the major Chinese companies being built in Singapore are Tencent Holdings Ltd, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, and ByteDance Ltd.
JPMorgan’s balance sheet allows the private bank to increase its relationship with clients through loans, in addition to providing other market activities, Wey said. Last year, the bank said it was starting a trust in Singapore.
The number of millionaires in China grew 11% to 1.3 million last year, a faster rate than Japan, home to 3.4 million millionaires, according to a report published in July by Capgemini SE.
Wey moved to Singapore in August to take up his current role from Hong Kong, where he was Market Manager for Taiwan since 2018. He joined the bank in 2008. Prior to that, he was a Management Consultant at McKinsey & Co.
