HSBC shuts stash-tainted private banking in India

Recently, Royal Bank of Scotland and Morgan Stanley have also sold their onshore private banking units in India as part of their global business restructuring.

“After a strategic review of global private banking operations in India, we have decided to close the business,” HSBC spokes-person told this newspaper over phone.

She said that the bank will work with the clients to minimise the impact of the decision on them and would offer private banking clients the choice to move to HSBC Premier, the bank’s global retail banking and wealth management platform.

The spokesperson said that these changes are expected to be completed by first quarter of 2016 and this marks progress in HSBC group strategy to simplify its business. The global bank’s private banking division has been mired in a black money probe after an investigation by ICIJ, a global journalists’ collective, found out that over 1,000 Indians had parked over $4 billion (Rs 26,400 crore) in HSBC Geneva till 2007.

However, bank officials were quick to dismiss any notion of this shutdown being attributed to the scandal and stressed that the controversy involves Indians’ accounts in HSBC Geneva.

“India is a priority market for HSBC where we continue to invest. We aim to achieve sustainable growth by supporting the needs of our customers in retail banking and wealth management, global banking and markets, and commercial banking,” said the spokesperson.