HSBC Holdings Plc hired a senior private banking executive from UBS Group AG where he ran a team serving wealthy Indians who live overseas.
Gautam Anand was appointed Global Coordinator for Global India, the Middle East, North Africa and Europe from Dec. 1, according to an internal memo seen by Bloomberg News.
“Our strategy is grow Singapore as an international wealth hub as part of our ambition to be Asia’s leading wealth manager,” Tommy Leung, the bank’s head of private banking for South Asia, said in the memo. Anand’s appointment will support the bank’s ability to serve clients across markets, said Leung, who joined the bank earlier this year also from UBS.
A HSBC spokesman in Hong Kong confirmed the memo’s contents.
Anand joined UBS in January and left shortly after at the end of August, according to the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s records, amid disruptions thrown up by the Swiss lender’s takeover of Credit Suisse. Before UBS, he was a team head for non-resident Indians at Credit Suisse and was there for almost a decade.
India has attracted interest from global and regional firms including HSBC and UBS that are seeking to boost financial services for the rich given its rapid economic growth. The country’s growing wealth management industry could be worth $5.5 trillion by 2025, according to Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Sarah Jane Mahmud.