In return to Singapore, Barclays Private Bank sets sights on ultra rich and family offices

[SINGAPORE] Barclays’ private bank, which made a return to Singapore in 2021, is building up the business with renewed vigour.

In that push, the group has been stepping up its recruitment in Singapore, said Evonne Tan, head of Barclays Private Bank, Singapore. Among the most prominent hires, besides Tan, are David Ratcliffe as chief operating officer and Ken Sze as head of investments, Asia.

The number of relationship managers in Singapore is now believed to exceed 10.

Tan told The Business Times recently that Barclays plans to continue hiring, despite many clients being in “standstill” mode as they try to assess the impact of US President Donald Trump’s tariffs. She said this could provide Barclays’ relationship managers with the opportunity to hold their clients’ hands through uncertainty.

In February 2024, it designated private banking as one of its five key pillars. Last July, Barclays, one of UK’s largest lenders, said it aims to quadruple its private-banking assets in Asia by the end of 2028. The bank, which had £212.4 billion (S$365.6 billion) in private-banking assets and liabilities as at Mar 31, 2025, doesn’t provide regional breakdowns.

Barclays sold its private-banking business in the city-state and Hong Kong to Bank of Singapore in November 2016. With about US$18.3 billion in assets under management as at end-2015, the business was sold for US$227.5 million.

Barclays’ private-banking business was previously known as its Wealth and Investment Management unit, and had been identified as non-core by the group’s then-chief executive officer Jes Staley.

When it made a U-turn to restart its Singapore private bank five years later, some of its clients were sceptical. “You’ve left before….will you leave again next year?” was a question that some of them had, said Tan.

But observers sat up when the bank hired Tan in July 2021, when the city-state and most of the world were still in the grips of the Covid-19 pandemic. Tan had joined from UBS, where she led the team overseeing the wealth of ultra-high-net-worth individuals.

Her experience proved useful when Barclays pivoted its Singapore private bank to focus on the wealth segment with at least £5 million or equivalent in local currency to invest. The lender also widened its clientele to include family offices in Singapore. The number of family offices rose 42.9 per cent from 2023 to exceed 2,000 in 2024.

Building up Singapore

Barclays’ private-banking business in Singapore currently uses London as its booking centre, but it is in the process of setting up a booking centre here.

A booking centre is a dedicated office handling the clients’ specific needs, such as managing their assets, executing transactions and providing wealth management services. Clients’ accounts will be registered there, which could affect where they are taxed, depending on their citizenship. A booking centre requires staff, and systems and structures to facilitate these processes.

“We have the commitment from the group to invest in the local infrastructure,” said Tan. “Our clients are looking to book assets and park assets here, and they want to invest in Asia. So we need to build up Singapore.” Currently, Barclays’ only booking centre in Asia-Pacific is in India.

The booking centre will be operational here by next year. “Clients are expecting us to come back in a big way.”

Tectonic plates shifting

Tan’s team is also focused on helping clients navigate the current investment climate. “Are there going to be new strategic alliances in the world? We don’t really know, but we just know that tectonic plates are shifting. We may not have the answers now, but we may need to do some rebalancing and restructuring for the long term.” For instance, the bank could suggest to clients with over-leveraged positions to take up more defensive assets such as gold.

Given that family offices typically have long investment horizons and deep pockets, many are emulating the approach of institutional investors by venturing into private markets, Tan said. “It’s not uncommon to see them allocating 25, 30 per cent (of their assets) to private markets, or even more.” While private-market assets are usually less liquid and transparent than public-listed securities, they are expected to generate higher long-term returns.

As family offices grow across regions, Barclays is targeting those with a more global profile, particularly large families seeking to invest globally, where the lender can also tap its investment banking team.

Within Asia, Barclays is focusing on helping family offices manage their wealth transfers, and legacy planning. Given the relative youth of family offices and large entrepreneurial businesses in Asia compared to Europe, Barclays can lean on its experience managing intergenerational wealth transfers in Europe, to help clients in this part of the world, said Tan.