StanChart to focus on multi-product clients; no new branches planned

Standard Chartered India will focus on cultivating multi-product retail relationships and cross-selling to affluent clients while consolidating branches into large priority centres

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In India, UK-headquartered Standard Chartered Bank’s (StanC’s) retail strategy will focus on cultivating multi-product relationships with clients, emphasising cross-selling its various products to wealthy and affluent customers, rather than retaining single-product clients, said P D Singh, chief executive officer, India and South Asia, of the bank.

 

Singh said that, at this point, the bank does not see the need to add more branches, which currently number 100 across 42 cities. The focus is on consolidating the bank’s footprint and establishing large-format branches in the form of “priority centres”. The bank plans to increase the number of such centres to 21 by the end of 2025–26. 

“On the retail banking side, we have the entire continuum of products. We do not want the customer to leave our ecosystem. We want to bank him both on the personal side and on his business side. That is the kind of customer profile that I think would be valued the most and would find the most value in StanC,” Singh said on Thursday. 

“We want multi-product relationships with our clients. I would like to invest in and focus on a client who has a home loan, credit card, and savings account. The aim is to cross-sell more products. But at some stage, if that does not happen, then they are best served by somebody else,” he added.

 

Singh stressed that the landscape for foreign banks in India has changed over the past couple of decades. “There have been only a few foreign banks that have consistently stayed the course. StanC is one of them,” he said, adding that the bank is currently fine-tuning its products, bringing in international capabilities, and digitising its offerings. 

 

“Therefore, we may not need to add new branches because branches are points of service, and all of this is moving to digital,” Singh said, observing that the bank is consolidating its footprint to have large-format branches and meet customer requirements.

 

Separately, Singh said the bank’s India unit is adequately capitalised for the next five years.

 

StanC India will also launch US dollar clearance from the Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT City) on October 7. StanC had been selected as the dollar settlement bank for GIFT City.

 

Singh also highlighted that there are positive headwinds for overseas fundraising through bonds, following India’s rating upgrade. State Bank of India recently raised $500 million from global investors at the tightest-ever spreads of T+75 basis points.

 

“As we are seeing, the spreads are probably the tightest ever, and we are seeing the rate cuts kicking in at the same time. I think it is a very good time for Indian corporates and financial institutions to issue and raise money. We have about three or four such transactions in the pipeline. If I look back a decade and a half, we have done about $125 billion of such issuances over the past 15 years,” Singh said.

 

Singh further said that the India–West Asia trade corridor — referring to the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor — is promising for the adoption of rupee invoicing. He added that if India were to diversify away from Russian crude oil, the impact would be an additional $6–7 billion, which is not a very large number from the standpoint of the Indian economy.