During the family wealth management forum held on March 22 in Shanghai, ICBC private banking sector has officially launched the family wealth management business. By leveraging the ICBC Group’s overall service strengths and world-leading resources in finance, legal affairs, taxation, family inheritance, and child education, the new business is aimed to meet customers’ needs for wealth inheritance, financing and public welfare, and offer a package of family wealth management solutions including fund fiduciary, wealth inheritance, investment consultation, limited financing, cross-border consultation, financial consultation and transaction management services.

Ma Jian, general manager of ICBC’s Private Banking Department, says that family wealth management service is intended to meet the needs of ultra-high net worth families for asset management, including investment with the huge wealth, management of family assets, separation of the family from business, planning on the inheritance of wealth, and family governance. Therefore, the family wealth management business is positioned as an integrated service provider with commitment to working with all family wealth management institutions to create a wealth management platform.

For operational purposes, the private banking sector will set up family wealth management funds for eligible private banking customers in a form of registered contractual type fund through ICBC Family Wealth (Shanghai) Investment Management Co., Ltd. registered in Shanghai Free Trade Zone. ICBC private banking sector engages global leading law firms, accounting firms and value-added service providers, and uses the best practices of the world’s renowned families to maintain and increase family wealth, enabling cross-generation inheritance, isolating risks and optimizing financial performance.

Joseph Fan, professor of School of Accountancy & Dept. of Finance, and director of Institute of Economics and Finance, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, says at the forum that the inter-generation inheritance of values should not be underestimated in family wealth management. By studying those corporations successfully inherited for hundreds or even thousands of years, he found that two things in common: firstly, they all established a sound and transferable framework of values. Secondly, they have a governance system that unites people relevant to the corporation, encouraging family members and employees to work together for business growth, and in return get satisfaction. So core value is a special asset for a family. The inheritance of value is a common problem faced by Chinese family businesses.

Ma says that the ICBC private banking is well positioned to launch family wealth management services and now it is the right time. ICBC private banking has a high-quality customer base. By the end of 2015, the number of customers has exceeded 62,000. With strong investment management capabilities and through strategic asset allocation and MOM management, the assets under management have surpassed RMB 1 trillion, providing one-on-one service to nearly 1,000 customers based on profound understanding of their individual needs and risk appetite and extensive experience in customized service. In addition, the ICBC private banking has strong capabilities in integrated investment and financing service, establishing a uniform asset and liability management platform for integrated management of the customers’ financial assets. More importantly, the private banking honors the unity of knowledge and practice, and has built a knowledgeable and experienced pool of elite wealth consultants capable of serving high net worth customers.