With an eye on a top three position in the country’s wealth market, HSBC UK has shrugged off competition from digital challengers for mass affluent money.
Having only recently added features like bill splitting and credit card rewards, and increased the availability of funds that users can invest in via its mobile app, HSBC’s UK head of wealth is betting on the bank’s scale and brand to compete in one of the industry’s most lucrative segments.
“You could argue, ‘Well, actually so many of these neo players have (added these features) years ago’. But we are at the party, that’s the main thing,” HSBC UK’s head of wealth and premier solutions Xian Chan said.
While recognising the UK is a “very competitive market”, Chan points to bank’s 160-year history and 15 million customers, which include more than a million customers in its ‘Premier’ brand for mass affluent Brits with £100,000 to £2 million to invest. “(Trust) is how we are going to win this race,” he added.
HSBC is targeting a top three position in UK wealth management, Chan said. It has grown its wealth and private banking assets under management from around £50 billion to £60 billion since launching a new strategy 18 months ago.
The bank is targeting the mass affluent and high net worth segments, which together hold more than half of the UK’s investable wealth, according to the wealth head. But even among these investors, market participation is low. UK adults put just 8 per cent of their wealth into equities, ETF’s (Exchange-Traded Funds) and mutual funds – the lowest of the G7 countries, according to GreySpark Partners analysis.
HSBC offers discretionary portfolio management for its mass affluent clients, but never competitors are going further to lure wealthy Brits with products they say have been traditionally reserved for the ultra-rich.
Monument Bank is among those challenging high street banks’ mass affluent approach, with CEO Ian Rand recently saying the push is “at best unimaginative and at worst non-existent”.
He argued that existing banks covering mass affluent offer the “same app as everybody else” with “incredible vanilla” services that haven’t changed in 20 years.
Rand said Monument Bank, which has grown deposits from around £1 billion to £7 billion in two years, uses agentic AI to offer customers a concierge service for travel, health and tax returns.
UK fintech Sidekick, meanwhile, touts Lombard Bank loans and private markets access for the mass affluent. Its co-founder CEO Matt Ford said in February that the segment has been “neglected for years”.
However, HSBC is avoiding a “product-first approach”, Chan said, adding that the bank won’t put customers into products “they don’t need”.
“Is it the case that the mass affluent need access to some of the alternative investments? Not necessarily. They just need to get going on their journey,” he said. “From our experience, and because we serve a lot of them, many of our customers can achieve their needs with a simple diversified portfolio.”
Since joining as HSBC’s group CEO in September 2024, Georges Elhedery has leveraged AI as part of a cost-reduction plan, with Bloomberg reporting that the bank was considering up to 20,000 job cuts. The slash comes after HSBC had said it would hire 200 relationship managers for its UK wealth business.
Chan declined to comment on the potential job cuts, but said the bank has been increasing its wealth managers and is “proceeding as planned” on hiring. Given HSBC’s large customer base who don’t currently use it for wealth management, the bank is looking to hire people who can cross-sell services.
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