In an increasingly globalized world, individuals face immense challenges in not only protecting and growing their wealth, but also finding the right banking partners to support them internationally.
After a long career in investment banking, retail banking, insurance and asset management – including as Global Head of Firm Strategy & Execution at Morgan Stanley – Annabel Spring was appointed as HSBC’s CEO of Global Private Banking and Wealth in 2020.
She’s focused on meeting the needs of millions of individuals throughout the consumer wealth continuum, stretching from retail banking customers all the way to ultra-high-net-worth (UHNW) clients and family offices.
“If you look at the world, there’s been tremendous wealth generation over the last 10 to 20 years, following waves of productivity and entrepreneurialism,” Spring says. “Asia has seen huge growth over this period. We are proud that HSBC is the number one wealth manager in the region serving the full consumer wealth continuum and linking them to the world.”
Spring’s brief at Global Private Banking and Wealth covers more than US$800 billion of invested assets globally. She is responsible for the teams which design and deliver investment and wealth solutions for Personal and Premier customers through to Global Private Banking clients.
“We protect and grow the wealth of our clients, their families and their legacies,” she explains.
“We’re the number one wealth manager in the region serving the full consumer wealth continuum.”
Unlocking global opportunities
HSBC has teams in the world’s wealth centers to bring the best investment ideas to its clients, wherever they are based. Spring says wealthy individuals want to seek opportunities across the world, whether they are in Asia looking for diversification into the Middle East, Europe or the United States, or from Europe and the United States seeking innovative ideas in Asia.
“What I enjoy about HSBC is it’s incredibly geographically dispersed, but incredibly geographically connected,” she says. “It’s that global connection and its collaborative delivery for the client that makes the difference at HSBC.”
Since becoming CEO, Spring has further extended the footprint of Global Private Banking, which returned to India last year and has launched in the United Arab Emirates, Thailand, Mexico and additional cities in mainland China. Under her leadership, the bank became the first international bank to set up a dedicated private banking service team in Western China. It also acquired Citi’s wealth business in mainland China and plans to launch three wealth centers in Singapore next year. In addition, Spring has hired a handful of private bankers from Credit Suisse to enhance the bank’s offering in the Middle East.
“We’re very fortunate to have a very talented team,” she says. “When you’re growing strongly you need to attract more people and you need to develop more people, too.”
“What I enjoy about HSBC is it’s incredibly geographically dispersed, but incredibly geographically connected.”
Relationships
“My view is that private banking is the emotional heart of a bank,” Spring says. “Everything we do is based on relationships – we have to understand our clients and customers deeply and deliver the whole of HSBC to them.”
This often includes collaborating with colleagues in the commercial bank and the global banking and markets business to ensure clients’ needs are fully met.
So while some younger clients may want the simplicity of reviewing and managing their wealth planning options on an app, others will still want to discuss more complex topics with a Relationship Manager, particularly when seeking advice on the most appropriate solutions to reach their evolving financial goals.
“At the other end of the continuum, relationships remain crucial for family offices and UHNW individuals,” Spring notes. “These are sophisticated investors who are looking for a diversified global portfolio and really need to understand a much wider range of investments and how they interact and are correlated and optimized globally.”
As relationships and connectivity are crucial to international business, the bank commissioned research on the global entrepreneurial wealth.
“It showed that entrepreneurs often have a global outlook – seeking business opportunities around the world, needing internationally diversified portfolios and wanting to create lasting legacies for their families,” Spring adds.
The bank regularly hosts events that enable UHNW entrepreneurs to share information and find common solutions. These events include breakfast roundtables with founders of leading private equity firms, such as David Rubenstein of The Carlyle Group, Steve Schwarzman of Blackstone and Henry Kravis of KKR.
“We’re very fortunate to have a very talented team.”
Spring also highlights a recent three-day program in Silicon Valley designed to connect clients in Asia with some of the most successful venture capitalists and startups in the United States.
“We covered emerging market trends and disruptive technologies such as generative AI and deep tech,” she says. ”Our business is focused on using our international footprint to benefit our clients as much as possible.”
She sees her role as leading teams to deliver whatever parts of the bank clients need to reach their financial goals. In practice, this often means offering solutions in areas as diverse as infrastructure, financial planning, foreign exchange or structured products and insurance. Her teams work closely with the business bank too, especially its HSBC Innovation Banking business.
Spring is particularly enthusiastic about the opportunities of the transformation at HSBC.
“The aim was to make sure that the global private bank had the best of transactional banking so that clients can actually use their phone to do everything you expect to do with a retail bank,” she says. “On the personal side, retail banking customers benefit from a wider product range and much deeper wealth and global private banking expertise.”
From a client perspective, she adds, this enables a much more cohesive investment view.
“It ensures that we are always making sure that our customers and clients are offering the right product to meet their needs and create the right opportunities for them at the right stage of the wealth continuum with no breaks,” she says.
This ability to consistently deliver the appropriate solution no matter where the client is on their wealth journey is absolutely critical, Spring says.
“Everything is always about putting the client first,” she concludes.
