Year after year, Citi quietly gets on with the job of providing world-class private banking services to its clients in Hong Kong. At Citi Private Bank, assets under management grew 66% between 2011 and the end of 2019 in Asia overall, with AuM up 50% in Hong Kong.
It has in recent years focused on crushing costs (its regional cost-to-income ratio is one of the lowest in the industry, at 54%) while creating tailored solutions that suit its clients’ needs.
Its Global Client Services division is key to its success, as it allows Asian customers to access investment opportunities across the world, while of course giving global clients access to Asia.
Key solutions provided by the bank to Hong Kong clients with financial assets of at least $10 million include real estate financing, banking and custody, business banking services, and consolidated portfolio reporting on a single, seamless platform.
Meanwhile, the bank’s Global Investment Lab helps high and ultra-high net-worth clients in Hong Kong and beyond to drill down into their portfolio and evaluate what really matters.
The Lab incorporates asset allocation analysis and investment modelling, and leans heavily on data to create individually tailored wealth management strategies, from asset liability balancing to interest rate hedging.
Hong Kong lies at the heart of Citi’s business in Asia, where it employs more than 150 bankers and product specialists.
Its discretionary fixed income team posted a return of more than 9% in 2019, while its discretionary equity team posted a return of 19%, outperforming the MSCI China index by more than 9 percentage points, despite the Covid-19 pandemic and unrest in Hong Kong.