Barclays PLC BCS intends to establish a new Private Banking booking center in Singapore, expanding its presence in the Asian region. The center is anticipated to be operational by 2026 to serve the company’s private banking clients.

Rationale Behind Barclays’ Initiative

This move reinforces Barclays’ emphasis on Asia expansion as it continues to offer specialist investment, banking, lending and wealth advisory services to its ultra-high-net-worth (UHNW) clients and global family office (GFO) clients.

Through this center, Barclays Private Bank will provide its clients with an extensive wealth management offering, enabling local asset booking. By leveraging its collaboration with Barclays Investment Bank, it will deliver an integrated “one-bank” proposition, offering clients quasi-institutional investment solutions, including access to sophisticated financial products and cross-asset class offerings.

Sasha Wiggins, CEO of Barclays Private Bank and Wealth Management, stated, “Asia Pacific is one of the fastest growing wealth markets, and this strategic investment in Singapore underscores our commitment to expand in the region. Establishing the new booking centre further strengthens our global proposition, allowing us to better serve our clients.”

Nitin Singh, Head of Barclays Private Bank, Asia Pacific, said, “We are focused on meeting the needs of our international clients in the region with enhanced banker coverage and product capabilities. This investment in Singapore, combined with our market-leading UK and Indian franchises, positions us to strategically capture strong global and regional inflows, while enhancing our ability to offer seamless cross-border wealth management solutions.”

This move aligns with the bank’s growth strategy. Earlier this month, BCS acquired the retail banking business of Tesco Personal Finance plc. and commenced a long-term strategic collaboration with Tesco Stores Limited enabling Barclays UK to distribute credit cards, unsecured personal loans and deposits using the Tesco brand. Further, last month, C.S. Venkatakrishnan, CEO of Barclays in an interview with Bloomberg stated that the bank is considering returning to Saudi Arabia as it aims to capitalize on the kingdom’s rising need to access capital markets globally.

BCS Zacks Rank & Price Performance

Over the past six months, shares of Barclays have gained 18.6% against the industry’s decline of 8.3%.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

Currently, BCS carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.