Standard Chartered defines such clients as people who have $25 million invested with the bank, and who are thought to have assets of at least $100 million, the report said.

"We see ourselves as having a special role to play in that segment, mainly because we know a lot of people who are in that lucky position," Stephen Richards Evans, Standard Chartered's head of private banking for Europe, the Middle East, Africa, South Asia and the Americas, was quoted as saying.

The firm did not respond to enquiries from WealthBriefingAsia at the time of going to press.

Standard Chartered, with assets of about $52 billion in its private bank, said it had hired three senior private bankers to set up its UHNW family office.

Ayman Abdul-Hadi, previously a managing director at HSBC Holdings' private bank, joined Standard Chartered in June along with Khalid Sattam, who came from Julius Baer. The bank also brought in Damien Morgan from HSBC to advise rich clients.

Standard Chartered is trying to leverage the group's existing relationships in segments such as retail and wholesale banking to meet these needs, Evans said.

"If a private banker is worth his salt, he will act as a sounding board to issues the patriarch of a family business is facing. Wealthy clients are increasingly demanding holistic solutions," Evans was quoted as saying said.

He predicted Asia, Africa and the Middle East would drive the private bank's profits in future, as wealth there expanded at faster rates than in the West.

Standard Chartered launched its private banking services in 2007 when it bought the private banking business of American Express.

In June this year, Evans spoke of the high potential of the Islamic financial services industry. (To view that article, click here. To view a WBA profile of the private bank in recent years, click here.)