Published by Wanda Rich
Posted on August 6, 2025
India’s affluent segment is expanding—driven by entrepreneurial growth, rising global mobility, and a growing appetite for more sophisticated financial solutions. With a presence in India dating back over 160 years, Standard Chartered Bank is building on that legacy to deepen its role as a trusted partner in wealth. Saurabh Jain, Managing Director and Head of Wealth Solutions and Affluent Segments in India, offers insight into how the bank is strengthening its digital platforms, elevating advisory capabilities, and building tailored offerings for clients who increasingly expect both global access and local expertise.
He began by describing the current position held in the market by Standard Chartered, which has been present in India for over 160 years. “Standard Chartered is among the oldest foreign banks in India, and has a wide footprint of 100 branches spread over 42 cities,” he said. “In addition to a full-service universal bank, the group has a Non-Banking Finance lending entity (Standard Chartered Capital) to complement the bank’s presence in specific geographies and segments and a Retail securities broking business (Standard Chartered Securities India), and is the first foreign bank to have commenced banking activities in India’s International Financial Services Centre (in GIFT City, Gujarat).”
Home to a sizeable and profitable Standard Chartered franchise, India has been among the top contributors to its global business over the past few years. “We are well-positioned to participate in the India opportunity, be it in the opening of new supply chains, increased manufacturing, or the country’s focus towards infrastructure building and sustainable finance.
“Our retail franchise, or the WRB (Wealth and Retail Banking) segment as it is called, serves the needs of affluent clients in India,” Saurabh continued. “Our affluent offering is underlined by a full-service wealth proposition catering to the needs of clients across investments, insurance, forex, equity broking, lending, and the capability to manage discretionary and advisory portfolio mandates. This is complemented by a strong digital backbone, with straight-through transaction capabilities across all key wealth products and industry-leading investment platforms like SC Invest and myWealth.”
As one of the largest foreign banks in India, both in terms of its distribution presence and assets under management, Standard Chartered’s wealth business in India has seen strong double-digit growth for the past 4 years, and India is among the top 5 markets for the Standard Chartered Group on wealth. “We are doubling down on our affluent and wealth business in India by significantly increasing our RM (Relationship Manager) capacity and investing further in technology innovations. We have launched state-of-the-art Priority Banking centres at 14 locations in India and will expand to a further 10 by the end of 2025, reflecting our commitment to elevating client experience and engagement for our affluent clients.”
He went on to acknowledge how India’s growing affluent and emerging middle-class populations are becoming increasingly international in their outlook, in terms of growing both their business and their wealth, and how Standard Chartered is responding to these changing financial needs. “With a presence across key markets in Asia, Africa and Jersey, our global network allows global Indians to access seamless cross-border solutions across wealth and lending. We are also evolving our product suite to address the evolving requirements of affluent clients, with bespoke solutions across alternate assets and private markets, and building advisory capabilities across asset classes.
“We approach the emerging affluent client as a segment that has a high propensity and demographic profile to become future affluent clients,” he continued. “They are usually at a life stage where they need a broader range of solutions across savings, lending, insurance and wealth. Our offerings are designed to address these key needs, with technology and digital serving as a key backbone. We continue to innovate using digital and data to ensure client experiences become smoother, faster and more personalised.”
Platforms like myWealth and SC Invest continue to enhance the bank’s wealth management offering, and Saurabh shed some light on the impact they have had on client engagement and access to investment services. “At its core, Standard Chartered strives to be a client-centric, data-driven, digital bank,” he explained. “This is underpinned by a commitment to establishing strong foundations in technology, information and cybersecurity, reframing technological transformation, and driving process excellence.”
Housed under the SC Mobile App and Online Banking, SC Invest is a state-of-the-art digital platform that allows clients to get onboarded, perform risk profiling, transact in mutual funds, view portfolio holdings across funds, savings accounts, and equities, and undertake reviews. As Saurabh described it, “SC Invest is a one-stop, online investment shop allowing clients to also read market insights, listen to our podcasts, undertake detailed fund comparison, and execute transactions through RM-assisted journeys.
“The SC Invest platform forms an integral part of our Wealth Management Strategy. It revolutionises the customer experience by offering seamless digital onboarding, efficient transaction execution and comprehensive portfolio review, and empowers clients with unprecedented convenience and control over Systematic Investment Plans, where the customer can Pause, Cancel and Resume SIPs at their fingertips.”
In addition, myWealth is an RM-facing platform that allows Relationship Managers to seamlessly perform portfolio reviews, generate actionable insights on portfolio health, and generate model portfolios aligned with Standard Chartered’s house views. “myWealth, equipped with in-house advanced analytics, empowers Relationship Managers and Wealth Specialists to better engage clients digitally with holistic and comprehensive portfolio reviews and personalised investment insights, and generate fully customisable portfolios tailored to clients’ goals and preferences,” Saurabh said. “It combines the bank’s in-house advanced analytics and investment expertise to generate personalised investment ideas with three key elements in the view: the client’s profile and risk tolerance, current investments, and alignment with our CIO house views.
“With myWealth, all necessary information for a portfolio review is in-built and housed in the tool, which is readily accessible from an RM’s iPad. RMs are now able to complete a portfolio review with a client on a single platform in just 30 minutes. This reduces the portfolio review time and improves the client experience significantly.”
Since digital innovation is often the most impactful when it complements human expertise, Standard Chartered’s digital platforms and advisory teams are designed to work in harmony to provide a seamless, personalised client experience, as Saurabh explained. “The digital platforms leverage advanced analytics on user behaviour and preferences to provide actionable insights,” he said. “Our advisory teams use these insights to tailor their solutions to each client's unique circumstances, ensuring that the human touch is always present in client interactions.
“Our digital platforms also ensure that clients can access personalised investment dashboards and track their portfolios online. These tools provide real-time updates and insights, allowing clients to stay informed and engaged with their financial plans. Advisors are available on-call, through tools like myRM, to discuss these insights, answer questions, and provide expert guidance. This integration ensures that clients receive personalised insights that are both informed by data and enriched by human expertise.”
This approach relies on seamless communication channels, integrating omni-channel access and advisor accessibility. “Clients can interact with us through multiple channels, including mobile apps, web portals, phone, and in-person meetings,” Saurabh revealed. “Our digital platforms ensure that all these channels are integrated, providing a consistent and seamless experience. Advisors can access the same integrated information, allowing them to provide informed advice regardless of the communication channel the client prefers.”
He also highlighted how client engagement is enhanced with the use of proactive alerts and notifications with advisory follow-up. “Our digital platforms can send proactive alerts and notifications about market changes, portfolio performance, and other relevant updates. This keeps clients informed and engaged. Advisors can follow up on these alerts with personalised advice and recommendations, ensuring that clients can take timely and informed actions.”
A major advantage of serving clients in this way is that it allows for a continuous improvement and feedback loop through client feedback, innovation and adaptation. “We continuously gather feedback from clients through our digital platforms and advisory interactions,” Saurabh said. “This feedback is used to improve our services and tailor our offerings to better meet client needs. Our teams work together to innovate and adapt our digital tools and advisory services based on client feedback and emerging trends, ensuring that we stay ahead in providing exceptional client experiences.
“By integrating cutting-edge digital tools with the expertise of our advisory teams, we ensure that clients receive a holistic, personalised and seamless experience that leverages the best of both worlds.”
Standard Chartered’s multiple business lines and client segments are no obstacle to cross-functional collaboration, as Saurabh affirmed that at the organisation’s core is a one-bank approach. “Strategic collaboration across Corporate and Retail Banking is a key focus area for the bank. For example, through strategic partnerships with top corporates, we provide a one-stop service to meet both corporate and employee needs, leveraging our Employee Banking solutions.
“India’s economic growth is being driven by a rapidly growing pool of entrepreneurial and tech-centric creators. By leveraging our strong presence in the SME segment, we are extending wealth management services to the owners and promoters of these businesses to address their financial needs and aspirations.
“Our international network also means that the opportunity to drive cross-border synergies and address the global banking and wealth requirements of affluent clients is significant,” he added. “We are able to tap into our corridor presence across markets and ensure clients get the best investment opportunities across those markets.”
When shaping new product offerings or expanding into new areas, the key for Standard Chartered has been to centre the needs of affluent clients and how they have evolved over the past decade, which has seen increasing demand for sophisticated products and solutions that meet their investment objectives and capacity for risk. “With significant entrepreneurial wealth creation happening in the past few years, wealth management in India has kept pace by coming up with innovative solutions and structures customised to the needs of clients,” Saurabh reported. “The affluent Indian increasingly has a global outlook, both in terms of business expansion and wealth management.”
He confirmed that Standard Chartered’s offerings have developed in step with these requirements. “As a full-service wealth solutions provider, we have offerings across investments, insurance, foreign exchange, lending, securities operations, and the capability to manage advisory and discretionary portfolio mandates. Over the past two years, we have significantly expanded our alternate product offerings, enabling access to private markets, exclusive strategies with reputed managers and expanding advisory across asset classes.
“As an international wealth manager, we help clients access cross-border investment opportunities. We have a strong corridor presence in markets such as Singapore, UAE, Hong Kong and Jersey, helping global Indians access investment opportunities both in India and their country of residence. We are also leveraging our presence in GIFT City to offer curated solutions for global Indians.”
He concluded with a look ahead to what the future holds for Standard Chartered Bank India. ”Product innovation is a continuous journey for us at Standard Chartered. Over the course of this year, we will be launching enhanced advisory tools for UHNW clients, along with expanding our alternate and private market offerings,” he revealed. “We are also expanding our platform capabilities, adding digital onboarding journeys across wealth products, enhancing our portfolio reporting platforms and capabilities, and augmenting functionalities in existing platforms like SC Invest and myWealth.”
Finally, in terms of the key strategic initiatives shaping the future of the bank, he offered some insight into what clients can expect next. “We are pursuing a conscious pivot to bank the affluent clients in India, expanding our coverage and presence in the top cities of India, while also enhancing our products and value proposition to cater to the affluent segment. These changes, which will roll out over the next few months, are aimed at making Standard Chartered a banking partner of choice for the affluent Indian, addressing their international banking and wealth management needs seamlessly.”
