Citi eyes bigger pie of wealth management in India

American lender Citi Tuesday said it is eyeing a greater pie of the Indian wealth management business, concentrating both on the domestic opportunity as well as non-resident Indians (NRIs). It has made two senior level appointments in pursuit of this in its private bank vertical, an official statement said, without quantifying the size of the market it aims to capture.

Quoting from a report by a consultancy, it said India has 263,000 high networth individuals HNIs, representing about USD 1 trillion in wealth, while there are 16 million India-born people living outside. The bank said in the recent months, several prominent Indian families have acquired residential and commercial real estate properties in the United Kingdom through financing from Citi Private Bank.

"What we are witnessing is just the tip of the iceberg. Ultra high networth (UNHW) families, in general, think of wealth in a borderless way," Jyrki Rauhio, the south Asia head for Citi Private Bank, said.

On the diaspora end, the bank said Indian UNHW families are concentrated in Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, Australasia, the Gulf region, East Africa, the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada, where it has offices. It has appointed Varun Chugh as the global market manager for the 'Global India business' and Puneet Sanwalka as the head of 'India onshore business', the statement said.