Veteran banker Lionel Kwok is set to join Standard Chartered Private Bank as managing director and head of investment advisory for north-east Asia, asiamoney.com understands.
Kwok quit Credit Suisse this month as its head of investments for North Asia, as reported by asiamoney.com last week (see story).
He is expected to start at StanChart next month in Hong Kong and will work alongside Stephen Richards-Evans, regional head for north-east Asia. StanChart’s global head of investment advisory and fiduciary is Gary Tiernan.
Kwok’s appointment represents the latest senior hire for StanChart in North Asia. Only last month the bank hired Stella Kong as managing director and head of relationship management for China, following an acrimonious split with Sarasin-Rabo Investment Management.
Also in February, it poached Trevor Mak from Citi to be head of relationship management for Hong Kong, a new role at the bank.
A senior industry source told asiamoney.com: “Everyone is hiring at the moment, only over the past few months StanChart has added a few more significant names. As a private bank they are really trying to catch up.”
Standard Chartered re-entered the private banking arena a little over two years ago, having sold its initial international private banking business in 1996 to Swiss Bank Corp., which subsequently became part of UBS.
The UK bank came to regret the sale, and has sought to reinvent itself in this area. Standard Chartered has four segments within its consumer bank, namely: mass affluent clients; Excel; priority banking; and private banking.
Its approach is to focus on clients with US$1 million to US$10 million in assets, striving to offer them portfolio-based wealth advisory services alongside more traditional banking requirements.
Some observers remain sceptical about StanChart’s willingness to commit resources to its private banking division, despite its appointment of senior personnel such as Kwok.
“There are still on questions about StanChart’s commitment to private banking and to the investments that are required,” said the source.
Credit Suisse departures
Kwok is one of several notable private bankers to have left Credit Suisse in the past few weeks.
The Swiss bank is also understood to have also lost Hong Kong-based investment consultants Michael Wong (vice-president) and Jeffrey Yung (director). Their destination could not be confirmed.
Meanwhile in Singapore, asiamoney.com understands that Lim Eng Guan, managing director and Credit Suisse’s market leader for Singapore, is stepping down for personal reasons. He is expected to take up to a year’s leave from the bank.
Lim had joined Credit Suisse in March 2008 as location head for the China market based in Singapore. He was promoted in April last year as market leader for Singapore in its private banking division. Previously he had spent 15 years with Citibank’s International Personal Bank as managing director for North Asia.
Furthermore, asiamoney.com can confirm that Jimmy Goh has quit Credit Suisse as director and market leader for Thailand. His future destination could not be confirmed.
Goh has been at Credit Suisse for around 17 years. Previously he worked at HSBC, having started as a treasury trader covering all markets including fixed income and derivatives. He was transferred to HSBC Private Bank, and from there joined the private banking division of Société Générale.
Respective spokespersons at Standard Chartered and Credit Suisse both declined to comment.