Axis Bank Gears Up For Wealthy Indian Business Families

Published: 03-Feb-2010

Axis Bank, an India-based private sector lender, in association with Geneva-based Banquee Privée Edmond De Rothschild Europe (BPERE), is planning to launch 'Family Office' accounts for wealthy Indian business families.

The Family Office account combines private wealth management advisory services with management of multi-generational needs. The financial services under the account include management of the entire assets and investments, tax and legal counselling, estate and bill-paying.

Under 'Family Office', the bank intends to manage the entire personal and business needs across generations of affluent families for a fee of 0.4-0.5% of the assets under management.

According to Sonu Bhasin, president of retail financial services at Axis Bank, 60% of the BSE listed firms are family-owned and at least 50,000 families have assets worth over INR1bn.

A late entrant into the high net worth individual space, the lender is planning to target individuals with a minimum net worth of $100,000. At present, Axis Bank has 15 relationship managers for private banking and 70 for wealth management.

Though players like Barclays, Kotak Mahindra Bank and Altamount Capital Management offer Family Office services to the wealthy Indian customers, their services are chiefly restricted to wealth management and advisory services. Alain Mestat, director of Banque Privee Edmond De Rothschild, said: “We are looking at providing solutions for the entire family issues and not only the wealth management part of it.”

Mr Bhasin said: "We are targeting a market shares of 5-7% in the Family Office space in the next 3-5 years. We want to be a serious contender in private banking, which is going to have the highest compounded annual growth rate over the next few years. Since relationship managers for private banks are a rare commodity, we are also looking to tap people from within the bank."

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