An increasing number of wealthy customers from mainland China are using Hong Kong to diversify their investments and expand their businesses globally, according to a senior executive of Hong Kong-based mid-tier lender China Citic Bank International.
“After many government efforts to promote family offices in recent years, we have seen strong growth from wealthy mainland customers seeking our bankers to help them set up family offices in Hong Kong,” said Wendy Yuen Miu-ling, head of the bank’s personal and business banking group, in an exclusive interview.
She said the bank, which uses the name CNCBI for short, had seen new cross-border wealth-management customers from the mainland triple in the first half of this year, while assets under management jumped 30 per cent.
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The growth of the wealth-management business helped boost the bank’s fee income by 50 per cent in the first half, while its private bank operating income increased by 60 per cent, Yuen said.
Rich mainland clients liked to set up family offices in Hong Kong “as a platform for them to diversify their investment portfolio”, she said, adding that as an international financial centre, the city offered them a wide range of international products to invest in.
Family offices are entities created by affluent individuals or families to manage their investments, succession planning and philanthropic activities.
CNCBI is the Hong Kong unit of mainland China’s Citic Bank, which is under the Citic Group. The group, established in 1979 by Rong Yiren with the support of late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, has developed into a conglomerate with businesses in finance, manufacturing, infrastructure and other sectors.
“Being part of the Citic Group is important as the brand is well known on the mainland,” Yuen said. “Our wealth-management customers can also get services from other units of the group as we can offer them trustee, investment banking, securities trading and other services.”
In addition, mainland enterprises that open accounts at CNCBI can tap Citic’s other units around the world to support global expansion. The group’s securities arm would also help such customers raise funds in Hong Kong by issuing bonds or stocks to tap the city’s active capital market, Yuen said.