As bank profit continues to be hit by the coronavirus pandemic, Standard Chartered has carried out senior management changes in its wealth management unit.
The bank has hired Marc van de Walle as global head of wealth management, which will be effective from 6 July 2020, according to a statement from the bank.
Van de Walle will be based in Singapore and he will report to Benjamin Hung, regional CEO of Greater China & North Asia and CEO of retail banking and wealth management.
Van de Walle joins from Bank of Singapore, where he was most recently senior managing director and global head of products and was concurrently head of wealth management for OCBC.
“He brings experience of the banking industry, including running global products that support both Bank of Singapore’s private banking and OCBC’s retail clients, corporate strategy and business transformation,” the statement said.
Van de Walle will replace Didier von Daeniken, the current global head of private banking and wealth management. Daeniken will focus his time fully on running the private banking business from 6 July 2020, the statement noted.
“Daeniken has led both businesses since joining the bank in 2016. Under his leadership, our private bank has seen three successive years of income growth and our wealth platform has been substantially upgraded,” a spokeswoman for the firm told FSA.
“In 2019, the private bank recorded double-digit income and asset under management growth,” the statement noted.
However, in 2020, Standard Chartered was hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic and cancelled the final dividend payout for 2019 ($0.20/share) while suspending the buy-back of its ordinary shares (up to $0.50/share to a maximum consideration of $500m) announced at the end of February.
In Q1 2020, profit for the period plunged 37% to $517m compared to the same quarter in 2019, according to the bank’s financial results.
Rival bank HSBC also announced a revamp of its wealth management business in March.
