Gold bars, cruises, Dior beauty services and Rosewood Hong Kong vouchers are just some of the incentives Hong Kong’s major lenders are offering in hopes of capturing wealthy clients, as visitors from mainland China descend on the city during the golden week holiday starting on Friday.
HSBC, Standard Chartered and Bank of China (Hong Kong) – the city’s three biggest banks – Citigroup, DBS Hong Kong, ICBC Asia, Bank of East Asia and Hang Seng Bank have all extended the hours of certain branches on Friday and through the weekend to sign up new customers, offering them cash awards and other incentives.
The five-day holiday that runs until Tuesday is a prime opportunity to sell investments, insurance and other products that fall under the wealth-management category, a major growth engine for the banks.
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The Immigration Department expects about 980,000 mainland visitors to enter Hong Kong between Friday and Tuesday, an increase of 7 per cent over the same period last year. The number of entries and exits during the five-day period is expected to reach 6 million.
“Golden week is a rare window when many mainland customers are in Hong Kong at the same time,” said Frankie Yan, head of retail and wealth distribution, retail banking and wealth at HSBC Hong Kong. “Instead of just a holiday excursion, we know they want to get personal chores done – including banking.”
HSBC Life, the city’s biggest life insurance company in terms of new sales, has teamed up with Dior Beauty to offer personal beauty services at HSBC’s wealth centre, and is offering a horse racing lunch at Sha Tin Racecourse on Sunday.
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