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TRENDS
The Art Of Giving
Wherever they may be, high networth global Indians always prefer to channel their charity back home, says Peter Flavel, global head of Standard Chartered Private Bank .......Dibeyendu Ganguly
LOCATED ON THE mezzanine floor of a heritage building in Mumbai’s Fort area, the offices of Standard Chartered Private Bank (SCPB) are exceptionally elegant, even by the high standards of venerable old foreign banks in India. Today, the aesthetics of the space have been further heightened with a dozen paintings by some of the country’s best known artists, sourced from the city’s top art galleries. Peter Flavel, senior managing director and global head of SCPB, is hosting a tea party for his high net worth individual (HNI) clientele in Mumbai, and he’s hoping they might buy some of the paintings on display, for charity. “We’re not doing an auction or anything — that would be too pushy — but the paintings are there in case our guests are interested,” he says.
Based in Singapore, where SCPB is heaquartered, Flavel has had occasion to meet Indian HNIs across the world and he’s gathered some interesting insights. Indian HNIs, like everyone else, want private banks to help them protect and grow their wealth. In addition, global Indians — in Africa, Dubai, Antwerp, Silicon Valley Singapore, Hong Kong — need advice in transferring their wealth to their families dispersed across the world. “It’s not unusual for a family to have three brothers located in three parts of the world, especially if they’re in diamonds or IT,” says Flavel. “The succession and estate planning issues here are complex and they want us to help.”
After this, the third service global Indian HNIs are demanding from private banks is help in identifying avenues for philanthropy. “While the overseas Chinese have traditionally invested in business in China, overseas Indians favour investing in philanthropic projects in India,” says Flavel. “Our Indian clients want to invest in projects they can actually touch and see. In the West, they give their money away and don’t necessarily want to see what happens with. Indians on the other hand, want to actively manage their philanthropy.”
To illustrate how it works, Flavel gives the example of a Gujarati business family that has been in Nigeria for the past 150 years and whose new generation is now dispersed across Africa and Europe. The family patriarch, who divides his time equally between London and Lagos, has recently launched into a project for setting up 20 hospitals in India, beginning with Bangalore. “Wherever they may be, Indian HNIs want to direct their charity to India, where their ancestors came from. They may have become estranged from India, but they still want to understand and give to it.”
SCPB is out to leverage these insights by helping its clients find the right projects. And what better option could their possibly be than Standard Chartered’s own corporate social responsibility (CSR) project? Seven years ago, Standard Chartered launched Seeing Is Believing (SiB), a project focused on preventive and curative eyecare in developing countries. This month, at a seminar led by global Indian beer king Karan Billimoria in London, SCPB set a specific target of raising $20 million in five years for the project, and said it would match HNI client’s contributions dollar for dollar. The money will go toward setting up eyecare hospitals in 20 cities in the developing world.
At Flavel’s tea party, if M u m b a i ’s HNI do buy themselves a L a x m a n Goud or Anjolie Ela Menon, the money will find its way to an eye hospital in Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata or Hyderabad. Art and philanthropy make for a great cocktail and no one knows this better than a private banker.
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