Mumbai, June 15: Standard Chartered Bank today launched its wealth management service for high net worth individuals having a minimum $1 million (Rs 4 crore) of investible wealth.

The service, called Standard Chartered Private Bank, has been launched simultaneously in seven other countries. The bank will offer investment advice to clients based on their risk appetite.

The asset classes to be offered include equities, mutual funds, fixed income and real estate funds. The facility will soon be offered in New Delhi.

The bank plans to extend the facility to other cities such as Calcutta, Bangalore and Hyderabad by the end of next year. The Mumbai launch coincided with those in Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing, Seoul, Dubai, London and New Jersey. Standard Chartered Bank is the largest international bank in India.

The country makes the third largest contribution to the bottomline of the bank after Hong Kong and Korea. Standard Chartered Bank has 81 branches and two million customers, offering facilities such as wealth management and consumer banking. The Standard Chartered Private Bank is an extension of these services. Murali M. Natrajan, regional head — consumer banking, India and Nepal, said there were more than 100,000 millionaires in India and the number was rising fast.

“Clients are asking for greater sophistication and better service,” he said. The bank, he added, would start the private banking services with 200 high net worth individuals. It aims to have 1,000 such clients by the end of next year.

The launch of this service comes at a time when Standard Chartered Bank is reportedly negotiating with the Securities and Trading Corporation of India (STCI) to buy around 49 per cent stake in UTI Securities. The acquisition, plans for which are at an early stage, is expected to provide a missing link in its product suite. It will enable the bank to get into retail and institutional broking, which will complement private banking.

Shiv Khazanchi, managing director & head, private banking, India, said that Standard Chartered Private Bank will take a “true open architecture” approach to product delivery by striking agreements with major asset management houses and other entities.