Indonesian premium bank customers less familiar to wealth management

Most of the Indonesian rich people are not keen in using wealth management service provided by banks to manage their funds and investment plans and they prefer to place their funds conventionally in saving and time deposit programs, a banker said here Tuesday. Despite the growing number of rich people in Indonesia, Steven Suryana, head of the Wealth Management at Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) said that they are not aware of the benefit to develop their wealth through wealth management service. Citing the results of the bank's studies, Steven said that Indonesia records increasing premium bank customers whose wealth above 500 million rupiah (about 51,000 U.S. dollars). The bank also learned that people grouped in the segment in Indonesia are even younger from time to time which now are dominated by people at the average age of below 40 years old. It made Indonesia rank the second youngest in the segment after China in Asian countries, Steven said. He added that in China, 50 percent of bank customers prefer to place their funds in investment portfolios. "About 70 percent of people in the segment still preferred to place their funds in saving and time deposit. People are not familiar with wealth management concept and its benefits here," he said. He added that it is caused by lack of education on the importance of investments at young ages. "People in the premium segment are actually eager to invest in bonds, mutual funds and other investment portfolios. But they don' t have the experiences," he added.