AS THE COMPETITION heats up in the Hong Kong wealth management sector, retail and private banks are looking for new ways to attract customers by offering asset diversification tools, niche offerings and good old-fashioned service standards.
With more than 100 years of investment management experience, American Express has expanded its range of wealth management solutions to include 'pre-private banking' customers. These are clients with US$100,000 to invest instead of the US$1 million or more that usually defines a client as a high net worth private banking customer.
Lina Cheng, American Express Bank Hong Kong vice-president and head of financial advisory services, said pre-private banking clients had the potential to become private banking customers.
She said pre-private banking clients received the same services as regular private banking clients. These include asset allocation recommendations and various types of advisory services researched by an experienced team of in-house analysts and economists.
American Express Bank began offering the pre-private banking service two years ago after identifying a market need.
'There are people who are too busy to look after their own wealth management needs but realise they need to make plans for the future,' Ms Cheng said.
