Strategy
Standard Chartered Brings Sporting Success to Australian Private Clients
Standard Chartered Private Bank has launched a new initiative aimed at high net worth Australians, and has recruited one of the country's greatest sporting heroes to market the concept.
Standard Chartered Private Bank has launched a new initiative aimed at high net worth Australians, and has recruited one of the country's greatest sporting heroes to market the concept. Former Australian cricket captain and batting hero Greg Chappell, who also recently coached the Indian cricket team, is an ambassador for StanChart's new Global Australian Executive Programme which was launched recently at Hong Kong's Ritz-Carlton Hotel. The GAE offers high-net worth Australians, the majority of them likely to be expatriates living in Asia, what the bank calls a "three sixty degree" investment and finance service, comprising both full transaction and offshore banking privileges. The programme offers an art investment and advisory service, risk protection and taxation to buying agency, residential mortgages and legal referrals. While many of the clients are likely to be living outside of Australia, the GAE links in with selected Australian service providers across all of these areas. "The Australian private wealth market is the 11th largest in the world and growth is outpacing many of the most affluent countries in the world," said Peter Flavel, global head of the Standard Chartered Private Bank. Stephen Richards Evans, head of the Private Bank for Greater China, said the GAE "takes a tailored approach to investment and financial advisory for the globally mobile Australian." "As Australians continue to be ever more successful in many fields and grow their wealth throughout the region and beyond, StanChart is the first financial institution to cater directly to high net worth Australian ex-pats needs. "The GAE is a dedicated program for Australians, with dedicated Australian Private Bank relationship managers who intrinsically understand the Australian investment mindset and cater to unique needs." Asked about the link with Greg Chappell, Stephen Richards Evans said the cricket star had, as a "financially comfortable Australian living and working overseas, witnessed first hand the need for tailored private banking solutions." There was also a link between cricket and banking in that both required "teamwork, trust and skill". "By forming this partnership we hope to demonstrate the qualities that make up a world class athlete are quite analogous to those needed for success by a world-class private bank." At the Hong Kong launch, Mr Chappell said his time in sport and in business had made him understand that both "need to re-invent themselves periodically to remain relevant in modern times". Taking the audience through the "cricket revolution" of the 1970's when Kerry Packer's privately operated World Series Cricket challenged and then changed the sport's establishment, Mr Chappell said: "If you're still trying to do business the same way you did 20 years ago, you're probably out of business now!"