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SocGen launches services in India
By Sources
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Thursday, 01 December 2005, 20:30 IST
SINGAPORE: French bank Societe Generale said it has launched its private banking services in India, tapping the country's fast-growing class of wealthy individuals with an estimated $280 billion of assets.
SG Private Banking has hired a team of private bankers in New Delhi and Mumbai, headed by Sandeep Sharma. This brings the total number of bankers for rich Indians at home and overseas to about 40.
"India is a significant market for our private banking business in Asia as it offers significant growth potential," Daniel Truchi, Asia-Pacific chief executive of SG Private Banking said in the statement.
Merrill Lynch-Capgemini estimates there are 70,000 Indians in India with at least $1 million each in financial assets.
SG Private Banking estimates wealthy resident Indians have assets of $280 billion while rich Indians and South Asians living overseas collectively hold about $300 billion.
Rising incomes and rapid growth in Asia's fourth-biggest economy, poised to expand by more than 7 percent in the current fiscal year through March, are drawing foreign banks to India.
India's information technology boom has created many millionaires and some billionaires like Azim Premji, chairman of software exporter Wipro Ltd. and the country's wealthiest man based on his 84 percent stake in Wipro.
A stock market rally that has seen the main Bombay share index nearly triple in the past two-and-a-half years has also created wealth.
Lakshmi Mittal, chairman of the world's largest steelmaker Mittal Steel and among the wealthiest in the world, and other Indians have benefitted from the commodities boom.
Besides onshore operations in India and Japan, SG Private Banking currently has booking centers in Singapore and Hong Kong. The firm is eyeing further expansion in Asia.
SocGen's interest in the world's second-most populous country has been growing. Its asset management unit last year announced the purchase of a 37 percent stake in the fund management arm of State Bank of India.
Rival BNP also got a foothold in India's asset management business when in October it agreed to buy a 49.9 percent stake in Sundaram Asset Management.