StanChart shuts 20 India branches, sharpens focus on wealth management

The development comes as the British lender is turning its focus toward advisory-led services like wealth management

British lender Standard Chartered Bank has reduced its branch count in India to 80 from 100 over the past year as it turns focus toward advisory-led services like wealth management, people in the know told Business Standard.

 

Standard Chartered, however, continues to have the largest branch network among foreign banks that have not opted to operate via the wholly-owned subsidiary route.

 

The bank has rationalised its presence by merging some branches that were in proximity to each other, and also closed down some single city branches, according to the people cited above.

 

Interestingly, Standard Chartered has not surrendered the branch licences to the Reserve Bank of India.

 

“Even if the branches were closed, we are relooking at the licenses, whether they can be redeployed,” said one of the people.

 

In response to a Business Standard query, Standard Chartered said the bank is consolidating and sharpening its focus on the wealth and affluent segment in India, moving from single-product relationships to multi-product relationships, in line with the evolving landscape and client needs.

 

“The strategy also involves suitability of premises to assess relocation, consolidation/merger of existing branches. For example, we are expanding our priority centres network within existing branches, from the current 20 centres to around 30 by the end of 2026,” the lender said.

 

“We remain committed to growing our wealth, SME (small and medium-sized enterprises) and affluent banking business and will continue to invest in opening large format priority banking centres within existing branches, leveraging technology, and increasing relationship managers to give our clients a global outlook and a differentiated experience,” the statement added.

 

Over the past couple of years, Standard Chartered has been stripping its assets from India operations. The British lender in October 2024 sold the personal loan business to Kotak Mahindra Bank. The transaction comprised a total loan outstanding of around ₹4,100 crore of standard assets. 

 

In April this year, Standard Chartered decided to sell 450,000 cards to private sector lender Federal Bank, in line with its strategy to move away from single-product relationships.

 

The foreign lender, however, has not exited the card business completely as it continues to have 150,000 to 250,000 cards for its multi-product relationships. The transaction is expected to close over the next three to six months.

 

In the last few years, many foreign lenders operating through branch networks decided to exit consumer businesses amid stiff competition from domestic banks in areas like mortgage and unsecured loans. In 2023, US banking group Citi completed the sale of its India consumer business, including consumer loans, credit cards, retail banking, as well as wealth management to Axis Bank, the country’s third largest private sector lender, for ₹11,603 crore.

 

Deutsche Bank in June this year decided to sell its India retail banking, affluent private banking, and wealth management business to Kotak Mahindra Bank for ₹282 crore.

 

While many foreign lenders are exiting business from India, London-headquartered HSBC took a contrarian call in 2025 when it decided to add 20 new branches, to the existing branch count of 26, in key cities including Amritsar, Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Navi Mumbai, and Thiruvananthapuram. HSBC said the expansion reinforces its focus on the wealth opportunity in India. This was a reversal of its 2016 move to reduce the India branch count to 26 from 50.