This article first appeared in Wealth, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on November 27, 2023 - December 3, 2023

Linda Yip’s association with HSBC spans more than 25 years, dating back to when she served as the first manager of its Damansara Heights branch in Kuala Lumpur, which continues to be one of the best-performing branches to this day.

Characterised by an adventurous spirit, Yip volunteered for a challenging assignment in Taiwan during the 2007/08 global financial crisis — overseeing its card and consumer asset businesses. Despite having limited knowledge of the region and Mandarin, she flourished and eventually ascended to the role of country head of wealth and personal banking over seven years.

Recently, Yip seized a new opportunity, to return to Malaysia as the head of wealth and personal banking. With a keen focus on premier and emerging affluent clients, she harbours substantial ambitions, particularly addressing their wealth transfer needs.

Just recently, HSBC Malaysia CEO Datuk Omar Siddiq announced the bank’s ambition to double the assets under management (AUM) of its wealth and personal banking business by 2025.

In an interview with Wealth, Yip recalls the challenging period in Taiwan when her colleague had to translate almost everything for her during meetings and on other occasions. It was partly the support of her colleagues that helped her get through those difficult times.

“It was quite challenging. Language is more about the ability to communicate. I still remember how my Taiwan team had to translate for me,” she says.

Most recently, she had to navigate the Covid-19 lockdown with her Taiwan team when most businesses ground to a halt. They devised many contingency plans to respond to customers when they most needed it.

“How are we going to move on? What’s going to happen to our call centre? Even if our branches are not able to serve customers, our call centre must still be able to operate. We did a lot of things including letting the call centre [staff] work from home.”

Her time in Taiwan was nevertheless satisfying and successful. “There were many milestones achieved in a very competitive market. We built a very strong wealth management and credit card business. Our customers, assets under management and unsecured lending book grew and are still very strong,” says Yip.

Earlier this year, Yip was eager for a new experience and came back to Malaysia. “I was market head [in Taiwan] for around seven years. Then I thought, ‘I’ve done whatever I want to do there’.

“When this opportunity came along, I put up my hand again. Even though I’m Malaysian, I don’t automatically [qualify for it]. It just happened that this opportunity came and Malaysia is a very interesting and growing market.”

Yip’s previous roles in many departments in two countries have prepared her well for her new role. “I have done all the roles. I was doing distribution, which is on the front line. I was a branch manager before, which is on the front line. I was also at the back doing products.”

Yet, having a good team is the main recipe for success. “The team is very important to me because we are in the business of people. Wealth and personal banking are a people business … It’s really about working together to overcome all this and addressing our customers’ wealth and retail banking needs,” says Yip.

HSBC Malaysia will be celebrating its 140th year in the country next year.  Yip acknowledges that she will be managing a bank with substantial brand heritage, a greater number of branches and a larger customer base compared with her experience in Taiwan. But she is excited to tap into the growing Malaysian economy. “When an economy is growing, that means there are opportunities. People are spending and consumers have a lot of needs. These can be in loans, accounts, international services and wealth.”

In 2022, Malaysia’s economy grew at the fastest pace among Southeast Asian nations at 8.7%.

“In 2021, Malaysia accounted for 17% of the wealth in Southeast Asia (according to the Boston Consulting Group). There are a lot of opportunities to grow. The other thing that’s compelling to me is that HSBC is very focused on growing [its] wealth [segment], not just in Southeast Asia but the whole of Asia,” says Yip.

In fact, HSBC has earmarked US$6 billion in investments to Asia over a five-year period from 2021, with half of it allocated to South and Southeast Asia.

Asian clients are very family-oriented, so wealth transfer is a major need in the market, including in Malaysia. Another attractive factor in Malaysia is its international reach.

“I would say it’s international and diverse, both from a cultural perspective as well as ease of communication and language. [The services we can provide] include what we can do for expatriates or internationally-minded customers who travel and [prepare] for their children’s education,” says Yip.

“We see strong corridors [in Malaysia] with the UK, the US, Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong and China, where we can do so much for our customers.”

One of HSBC’s strengths that Yip emphasises is its international presence in 62 countries. The ability for HSBC customers to conduct global transfers in real time with no fees across borders is a selling point, especially as more people are travelling now.

“Our Premier Everyday Global Account is very popular, giving the convenience of 11 foreign currencies with real-time rates, meeting the needs of frequent travellers or Malaysian parents who send their children overseas. The country is also becoming a hotspot for foreign retirees, thanks to its location and affordability,” she says.

These trends bode well for HSBC’s business in the country. “We have to know ourselves, where we are and invest in our strengths. We must be honest with ourselves.

“What is HSBC’s strength? What can we do for our customers so we can make a difference? [It’s that] HSBC is international. And it’s able to provide really good service by our teams in the country.”

At a time when digital investment managers and digital banks are democratising access to investment, wealth and other financial products, it is natural to wonder if traditional banks face any pressure to change their business models.

Yip says she is confident about HSBC’s ability to provide its clients with a full suite of services, whether it’s to get a loan, credit card, transfer funds, purchase insurance or invest in unit trust funds. “We give that service to our customers and we do it [via] a combination of [relying on] relationship managers versus digital [means]. Customers have different needs.”

However, she hasn’t seen a huge demand from clients for lower fees or investment in alternative assets such as cryptocurrencies, although she doesn’t discount that this may happen a lot more in the future.

On the wealth side, it is eager to increase the number of environmental, social and governance (ESG) themed funds for clients. “Living and financing sustainably is an area that we will be working on. There’s still room to do more, to be honest.”

Yip’s target is to achieve double-digit growth in the mid to long term, which she is confident can be done thanks to Malaysia’s growing market.

One of the strategies that HSBC Malaysia will adopt is to diversify the services it offers to the premiere segment, which is aimed at those with assets above RM200,000 but below RM8 million.

“We have got an even better global proposition coming that I can’t reveal now. We have lots of things in the pipeline that we are working on,” she says.

Another segment that HSBC Malaysia is targeting is the emerging affluent segment, which is made up of people with assets ranging from RM30,000 to RM200,000. “For this segment, definitely, it’s more of a digital play and the ability to go into areas of wealth,” she says.

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