HSBC goes after India's new rich, smaller cities and cross-border clients

The pitch and the ambition

HSBC Holdings Plc wants a bigger cut of India's fast growing wealth by serving customers getting richer at home and operating across borders. Hitendra Dave, HSBC's India CEO in Mumbai, said the bank is leaning into three lines of business - wealth, transaction banking and what he calls globality, or using HSBC's international network to serve clients whose money and companies span countries. For the wealth unit, Dave set a clear target: "Our ambition is to become one of the top four or five private banks in India by 2030." He added, "We are building a wealth franchise beyond India's metro cities," describing the emerging cohort of Indian wealth as more international as more people study and work abroad, build businesses overseas and invest globally.

The private bank generally caters to customers who have investable assets of at least $2 million. "We can be especially valuable to customers whose financial lives, businesses and wealth cross borders," he said.

Branch buildout and premium products

HSBC plans to grow from 34 branches today to 46 across 34 cities over the next two years, stepping further into smaller markets. Planned additions include Bhubaneswar in the east, Rajkot out west, Jalandhar up north, and Mysuru in the south. On products, the bank is deepening ties with wealthy customers through premium credit cards and larger mortgages. Annual fees on its top tier cards can reach 110,000 rupees, about $1,147.

A crowded field and tougher rules

The strategy places HSBC in head-to-head competition with heavyweight domestic players such as ICICI Bank Ltd. and Kotak Mahindra Ltd. It is a tough market to navigate as domestic banks scale up and boutiques founded by senior bankers fight for clients and talent, sending relationship manager pay to record highs. Among overseas banks, HSBC, Standard Chartered Plc and Barclays Plc are in the minority expanding wealth operations in India, even as some peers have retrenched. Overseas banks also encounter stricter branch-opening rules than local competitors, making it tougher to build a national footprint. Standard Chartered has the largest footprint among foreign banks with 80 branches.

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Global network payoff, in numbers

HSBC says its cross-border edge is already showing up in results. Under a recent special foreign-exchange swap program for India's overseas community, the bank disbursed $10.9 billion via GIFT City across three months, surpassing ICICI Bank at $8.4 billion. Transaction banking is another pillar, and Dave said the bank supports corporates with payroll processing, foreign-exchange remittances, dividend distributions and liquidity management. For everyday investors, the takeaway is simple: banks are racing to serve richer, more globally connected Indians, including outside the metros, which can bring more premium products and smoother cross-border services closer to home.

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