OCBC’s private bank plans to grow its business in Europe to capture more asset flows from wealthy people in the UK as the British government mulls raising some taxes on them, according to a senior executive.
Bank of Singapore (BOS) sees the city-state attracting more of these flows from so-called “non-doms”, Ranjit Khanna, the firm’s head of Europe and the Middle East, said.
Non-dom describes a UK resident whose permanent home – or domicile – for tax purposes is outside the UK.
The firm aims to double revenue from outside of Asia over the next three to five years, and plans to add to the 20 people it currently has in London, Khanna said, without elaborating on the number of hires being planned.
“If you look at flows out of the Middle East and Europe that are coming into Singapore, there is a lot more interest and a lot more curiosity, given some developments,” Khanna said. Given the UK’s plans to raise taxes for foreign residents in the country, “people are considering alternatives”.
BOS books clients’ assets in its home turf and Hong Kong, and derives some 90 per cent of its business from Asia. It stands to be among lenders in the region to benefit from recent UK outflows.
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These have been partly sparked by Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s deliberations around hiking taxes on ultra-rich residents from overseas to fund key spending plans.
These contentious proposals have prompted many wealthy people to either leave or consider exiting the UK. The government is now considering tweaks to the non-dom overhaul amid concern the current plans may end up costing revenue, Bloomberg News reported last month.
BOS works closely with its parent OCBC, the city-state’s second-largest lender, and both have been growing their UK business, including by offering mortgages for both residential and commercial needs, Khanna said.
London will be the firm’s main focus in the UK, which is a strategic market, he said. The firm plans to close its Luxembourg operations after a review. The Luxembourg operations, started in 2018, was fined 210,000 euros (S$300,281) about two years ago by the local regulator for breaches related to money laundering and terrorism financing.
“London plays a very important part in our future strategy because it helps us capture the flows” which go both ways, as clients in the Middle East and Asia are keen to snap up real estate in the UK, he said.
The bank just named Rob Woodthorpe Browne from SG Kleinwort Hambros as its new London head, following the retirement of Liz Bottomley, Khanna said.
Dubai expansion
Elsewhere, the bank hired Bianca Yau as its first dedicated relationship manager for Chinese clients in Dubai, due to their interest in the region, said Khanna. Yau joined from Coutts & Co in London earlier this year, he said.
The bank has grown its Dubai relationship-manager headcount by about 20 per cent in the past 12 months, according to him. Asked whether the bank plans to make Dubai its third booking centre after Singapore and Hong Kong, Khanna said there is no current need, but “we strategically review our businesses all the time”. BLOOMBERG
