One of Barclays' top managers running wealth management teams across Asia also now has the offshore Africa market on his plate - and he's bullish about prospects in 2013.

One of the top executives at Barclays’ wealth and investment business for Asia continues to be bullish about growth across his region and also is confident that his firm’s plans to aggressively expand its offshore Africa operations will bear fruit.

Srinivas Siripurapu, who heads the South Asia community and Southeast Asia community for the UK-listed bank, has recently taken on the job of developing the bank’s offshore Africa business. Africa has had more than its share of unflattering headlines down the years but the economic upside of the continent is sometimes underestimated and Barclays – a bank with a long Africa pedigree – is determined not to let the benefits slip through its fingers.

“I am looking for senior bankers and team hires in Africa. I am very excited about this untapped market,” he told this publication in a recent interview. The revenue growth in Africa could be around 30 per cent in 2013, he said.

Siripurapu joined Barclays’ wealth and investment arm – Barclays Wealth as it was then known – in 2009. His Asia role is already significant: the Global South Asian Community – commonly known as non-resident Indians, has a potential total wealth of $500 billion, and Barclays says it is a leader in this client segment. In South Asia, Siripurapu says he has tripled the size of the team and doubled assets under management yearly since 2010, and expects assets under management for such clients to grow north of 40 per cent annually over the next two years.

All this building out of business in Asia - and now Africa - does not come cheap, but Barclays' shareholders and bosses will be pleased that the wealth and investment management arm of the bank saw its cost-income ratio drop to 83 per cent at the end of September last year from 86 per cent a year before. Pre-tax profits for the first nine months of 2012 rose to £200 million ($322 million) from £153 million a year before.

Africa

The offshore Africa business has got this man excited, not surprisingly since if Barclays can make significant inroads there, it can carve out a large market share where the name Barclays is already an established brand, with a history dating back over 100 years. The bank already has offshore teams serving Africa in London, Geneva, Zurich and Dubai.

The three main regions for this business are West, East and South, with countries such as Nigeria and Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and of course South Africa, he said.

Although not directly indicative of bookable offshore wealth with an African connection, recent performance by African equity indices sheds light on why Siripurapu is cheerful. The MSCI Kenya Index boasts eye-watering total returns of 63 per cent over the past 12 months (capital growth added to reinvested dividends); the MSCI Nigeria Index has returns of 66 per cent – and both indices are already in positive territory this year. The MSCI Frontier Markets Africa Index is up by 49 per cent over the past 12 months. According to the latest RBC Wealth Management/Capgemini World Wealth Report, issued last summer, the total number of high net worth individuals in Africa rose by 3.9 per cent between 2010 and 2012, the fastest expansion rate for any major region in that period. They collectively hold $1.1 trillion of wealth, and there are currently around 100,000 HNW persons in Africa. Of course, this stands far behind North America’s figure of 3.37 million HNW individuals, but that may merely indicate the upside scope for Africa if economic trends persist and it avoids some of geo-political woes that have held it back in the past.

Siripurapu knows that Barclays is hardly alone in viewing Barclays as an important market. In November, for example, France's Societe Generale made some key appointments for the MENA region, appointing  Jean-Paul Rame as global market manager for Africa - a segment with "significant growth potential", the firm says. (He also retains his existing role as manager of the African desk for Societe Generale Private Banking Switzerland.)

The development of wealth management at Barclays is happening while other parts of the bank are also seeing important Africa moves. As announced in December last year, Barclays and its subsidiary Absa Group have agreed to combine the majority of Barclays' Africa operations with Absa. Barclays says this combination accelerates its "One Bank in Africa" strategy and its goal to become the "Go-To" bank on the continent.

South Asia

The Indian sub-continent and its associated territories is a key growth area for this firm – as it is to many other Western houses these days – and Siripurapu has built up what Barclays says is the biggest team of its kind for South Asia, for example, tripling in size since 2010. Growth in such banker numbers operating in Singapore, for instance, has been “exponential”, he said.

“We expect to see 40 per cent growth per annum in revenues and assets going forward,” he said, referring to South Asian clients, who are predominantly Indian. That will represent a deceleration, though, admittedly from a scorching growth rate of closer to 100 per cent in 2011 and 2010.

Talk of South Asia brings up the central importance of the non-resident Indian segment – NRI has become an acronym as well known to wealth managers as FATCA is to tax lawyers serving expat Americans.

“We currently have the largest team globally covering the NRI segment. We continue to build up the teams globally. The bankers currently sit in Dubai, London, Geneva and Singapore. Singapore has the largest team of bankers, with smaller teams in the other markets which we are looking to grow,” he said. Booking centres for such clients are London, Singapore, Hong Kong, Geneva. Dubai is not a booking centre although it is a fully operational office.

What do so such clients want?

“South Asia clients like to be in charge. Discretionary wealth products are not really on their minds although they like some fund-based solutions. These clients like to do forex, fixed income, equities and structured swaps. “We have a lot of expertise with open architecture solutions….they [South Asian clients] are very sophisticated and they like to trade all kinds of markets,” he said.

With Asian clients more generally, discretionary wealth management is not yet a big choice, although there are some signs of change. At present, discretionary wealth management accounts for less than 10 per cent of the assets of South Asia clients and Asia clients in general.

As far as southeast Asia is concerned, Siripurapu pointed to regions such as the Asian giant of Indonesia – clients are served primarily from Singapore. “It is a significant opportunity for us,” but cautioned that the supply of available talent to serve clients in this multi-ethnic part of the world is limited at the present time. Other important markets for the bank in the region are Thailand and Malaysia, he said.

Assuming the performance lives up to the billing, Siripurapu is in for a hectic 2013.