Private banking opportunities draw increased foreign interest

In March, Lombard Odier established a strategic partnership for private banking with Shanghai-listed Industrial Bank Co, which is expected to help Chinese with high net wealth invest globally.

Singapore-based DBS Bank Ltd announced in March that it had agreed to acquire the Asian private banking business of Societe Generale SA in Singapore and Hong Kong, as well as parts of its trust business, for $220 million.

Private lenders will test the waters of financial reform

China has 358 billionaires, ranks 2nd behind US

A growing middle- and upper-class population in Asia is lifting demand for wealth management, said Chng Sok Hui, chief financial officer of DBS.

For private banks, China is a market with a vast number of potential clients. As of 2013, there were more than 1 million individuals in the nation with assets available for investment exceeding 10 million yuan ($1.6 million) each, the China Merchants-Bain survey showed. But those individuals have had few private-banking options so far.

According to commercial banks' 2012 annual reports, Bank of China Ltd had the largest number of private banking clients (40,000), while Agricultural Bank of China Ltd had about 35,000 and Ping An Bank Co Ltd had 6,000.

Cartier Lam, vice president of BEA China, a division of The Bank of East Asia Ltd, said China's private banking mainly serves the newly affluent. But it's tough to identify core customer needs for this market, and most banks offer similar products and services.

For foreign banks, private banking mostly refers to managing personal wealth. But according to Dai Xiaohong, managing director of Standard Chartered Plc's private banking operations in China, nearly 60 percent of their clients are entrepreneurs, most of whom don't separate their business and personal wealth.