China Construction Bank Private Banking
China Construction Bank’s private bank leads the field among state-owned banks in helping high net-worth clients with the most comprehensive services. It has a team of 1,800 wealth management consultants and account managers dedicated to serving clients through more than 300 wealth management centres spread across China, and centres in Hong Kong, Macau and Singapore. At the end of 2018, CCB served 127,000 wealthy clients, with a total of Rmb1.35 trillion ($200 billion) in assets under management, the largest among the nation’s top five largest state-owned banks.
Led by Liu Jianzhong, the general manager in charge of wealth management and private banking, the bank has enhanced transparency in China’s private banking market by working with global research firms to come up with a number of landmark studies on the wealth management market in 2017 and 2018.
CCB’s online app for private bank clients has proved popular. The app helps the bank to keep in close touch with its elite clients, who use the app not only for investments but for a range of exclusive features, including interacting with private account managers, receiving special invitations to events, consultancy services and participating in private health programmes and travel services.
Among the special services offered are information and advice about how to set up family trusts. The bank last year set up private bank family advisory offices at its headquarters in Beijing and in branch offices in Shanghai and Shenzhen, as well as in Guangdong and Shandong.
CCB also offers a tailor-made health programme, which clients can use to access medical consultations by phone, specialists trained in traditional Chinese medicine treatments and trained medical attendants who can provide medical services in private homes. The benefit was used nearly 30,000 times last year.
The bank also offers a range of free legal counselling services and wealth-transfer lectures, offering one-to-one consultations and access to a range of expertise, including legal advice on maintaining financial assets and the transfer of wealth to the next generation.
The bank has advisory and management services particularly for the elderly and for those nurturing the young, for example, providing overseas education support programmes, including help with visa applications and travel services.To improve staff training, last year CCB implemented the first phase of its in-house ‘Swiss private bank wealth consultant training programme’ on inter-generational family wealth transfer.