Banks trying to woo NRIs in Singapore

Every major bank wants to attract Indian expatriates working in Singapore and the adjoining regions. And now, HSBC has opened a separate section called NRI desk focusing specially on non-resident Indians (NRIs).

The NRI desk, that targets wealthy customers with about Rs. 2.5 million worth of assets, is managed by three Indians.

According to Datamonitor research, there are currently 114,000 NRIs based in Singapore and over 22 million NRIs live in various parts of globe while 13 percent live in South-East Asia.

Non-resident Indians (NRIs) are in every profession whether it’s engineering, IT, banking and they together hold US$32 billion of bank deposits in India.

Like HSBC, there are other banks too, that are focusing on NRIs. British private bank, Coutts, has a team of 20 people dedicated to NRI customers. While, Ngo Min Ying, general manager of Shared Distribution at Standard Chartered, Singapore, informed that in priority banking alone, Standard Chartered has four NRI RMs and he is still looking to hire more to cater to this segment by this mid-year.

Manasije Mishra, head of NRI services of HSBC, said, that his banks NRI desk helps affluent Indians working in the Singapore to open accounts and remit money to India. He also added that HSBC has expertise and branches in India and all over the world where Indians are staying and thinks his bank can provide expertise to NRIs on what to invest in, as well as maintaining ties with India.

According to World Bank estimates, India largely receives money from non-resident Indians (NRIs) and its annual remittances amount to US$23 billion of which 10 percent remittance money comes from South East Asia alone.

Banks trying to woo NRIs in Singapore

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