With its latest restructuring, HSBC is seeking to better tap into China’s growing wealth both at home and abroad by combining its private bank with its wealth management and retail banking businesses, according to the global head of the newly merged business.
Charlie Nunn, the chief executive of HSBC’s new wealth and personal banking unit, said the combined business can become a “real powerhouse” in the wealth space with the goal of increasing revenue by “double digits”. The biggest of Hong Kong’s currency issuing banks, HSBC is placing even greater focus on Asia as part of a reshaping under interim CEO Noel Quinn that is expected to include US$4.5 billion in annual cost reductions and as many as 35,000 job cuts.
“We want to deliver on the growth that we’ve been achieving, grow faster and be able to do more for our customers at a very simple level and then have a combined business that now really enabled us to compete at the top of the wealth franchise and grow and capture some market share,” Nunn told .
The combined wealth business has US$1.4 trillion in assets under management, with nearly half of those assets in Asia. Revenue from Asia in the wealth business increased by 12 per cent to US$5.7 billion last year.

The latest strategy update, announced last month, is the third reorganisation for HSBC in a decade as Quinn tries to improve its profitability and win the top job at the bank. John Flint, the former CEO, was ousted in August after just 18 months in the job.
It comes as HSBC, Europe’s largest banks by assets, and other lenders are struggling to navigate historically low interest rates worldwide, slowing global growth and rising protectionism.
Hong Kong, the bank’s largest market, has been hit hard by months of anti-government protests and the coronavirus epidemic, which has infected more than 86,000 people worldwide. The city’s economy fell into a technical recession last year and is expected to contract further this year.
“We view the end-state business plan targets as ambitious and credit-positive if achieved,” Alessandro Roccati, senior vice-president in Moody’s Investor Service’s financial institutions group, said in a research note. “However, factors beyond management’s control such as weaker growth, the low rate environment, US-China trade tensions, social unrest in Hong Kong and the duration and ultimate magnitude of the coronavirus epidemic may present greater challenges for the plan than presently anticipated.”