StanChart private bank sees modest growth

By Saeed Azhar and Neil Chatterjee

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - The private bank of Standard Chartered (STAN.L) expects asset growth from rich clients to slow this year after a 28 percent jump in 2007, on worries about rocky markets, its top executive said on Wednesday.

The warning underscores rising concern about the outlook this year for private banks, who in the past three years have enjoyed rapid business and asset growth in booming Asia.

Peter Flavel, global head of the Singapore-based private bank, told Reuters he is still very worried about financial markets and has reduced clients' equities exposure to 40 percent from 50 percent last year, increasing cash holdings instead.

"We are in very volatile times," Flavel said in an interview. "Nobody knows how long this stuff in the (United) States is going to continue to go and a quarter of the world's consumption comes from the States.

"If you ask me what the most likely scenario is, it is that asset growth will be modest. It is coming off from growth of 20 odd percent," he said, adding he "absolutely" expected to keep growing the business.

Swiss bank Julius Baer (BAER.VX) also said in January that revenue growth may slow in Asia this year due to choppy markets, but stuck with plans to expand its regional wealth management.

Standard Chartered formally launched its global private banking from Singapore in the middle of last year and has expanded into 11 markets, mostly in Asia -- catering to clients investing assets of at least $1 million (511,000 pounds).

Flavel said the bank is now managing client assets worth $40 billion, ranking it seventh in Asia, from where it derived 37 percent of its assets. It has 350 relationship managers and plans to hire another 150 within three years, he said.