Barclays Private Bank is an international wealth management powerhouse in Africa. The UK lender celebrates its regional centenary this year, with a history in Africa that stretches back to 1925.
Today, Barclays Private Bank is focused on a core group of markets in southern, western and eastern Africa, most notably South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria and Ghana, where growth, income and revenues are evenly spread.
In 2023, it doubled the size of its business when it bought Credit Suisse’s sub-Saharan Africa ultra-high-net-worth book – a bold move that added heft to its corporate and investment banking and private banking teams, as well as boosting client assets under management to $1 billion in South Africa, and $1.5 billion in east Africa. During the awards period, Barclays Private Bank posted a 22% year-on-year region-wide jump in revenues.
The wealth manager delivers services to a wide range of clients, including family offices, first-generation entrepreneurs, and multi-generation family businesses. Today, the firm has 30 global Africa-facing private bankers, who support clients from key locations including Dubai, the UK and Switzerland. Core services include investing, banking, lending, wealth advisory and philanthropy.
“Our private banking business is the trusted adviser and investment partner for African families with their global needs, and global families looking to invest in the continent,” says Amol Prabhu, Africa head of private banking and South Africa CEO of Barclays Private Bank. “We operate across international corridors, and it is our history, independence, stability and particularly our philosophy of providing world-class, high-touch private banking that differentiates us.”
Growth is a diverse demographic feast. The private bank serves a wide range of clients, including non-resident Indians with business interests and assets dotted around the continent. In west Africa, its client base skews toward wealth built on the oil and gas sector; in east Africa, it turns toward agricultural wealth. All regions have seen a sharp rise in personal wealth predicated on timely investments in the likes of technology, clean tech and cutting-edge manufacturing.
The quality of service that Barclays Private Bank delivers to its wealthy and super-wealthy clients in Africa is paramount
Wealthy regional families keen to make money work for generations to come once instinctively put money to work in Switzerland. But Africa clients are now increasingly looking to buy residential or commercial property in the UK and book a certain portion of their wealth in that market, or to build a business touchpoint in the likes of Dubai, India and Singapore (depending on where their children live or work).
Full private banking customers, with personal assets of £5 million ($6.5 million) and up, can access a suite of personalised products and services, through which they can manage their global family’s needs. Clients with £250,000-£5 million in assets can in turn access a relationship manager. Barclays Private Bank helps them all build wealth portfolios that benefit from global investment opportunities including alternative investments, and which also work to swerve negative domestic challenges, including inflation and financial and political uncertainties.
The quality of service that Barclays Private Bank delivers to its wealthy and super-wealthy clients in Africa is paramount. The UK lender knows that, in most Africa markets, clients are usually banked by two or maybe three lenders, and it’s Barclays aim, wherever it is present, to be the ‘lead’ bank and main financial and private bank provider.
