Axis to hire 50 private bankers to target wealth boom in India

The rapid rise in rich clients has intensified competition among wealth managers, triggering aggressive hirings with sign-on bonuses, high commissions, and other incentives

Axis Bank Ltd. is adding 50 private bankers and plans to launch several funds in India’s low-tax finance hub, as part of a broader strategy to tap into the explosive growth of the country’s wealthy population.

“We have now expanded to 52 cities from 30 last year to tap the growing wealth in tier 2 cities and beyond,” said Mumbai-based Arnika Dixit, who heads wealth management and the affluent banking unit at the country’s third-largest private sector bank.

The firm is expanding its team of bankers across locations to cater to the growing needs of high-net-worth individual and ultra-high net-worth individual clients, Dixit told Bloomberg News in an interview last week.

Axis Bank is recruiting the senior money managers for its private banking division called “Burgundy Private”, which has 250 bankers, according to its latest annual report. The move adds to an industry-wide hiring spree, with global players such as HSBC Holdings Plc and Standard Chartered Plc, along with domestic firms including Indian billionaire Uday Kotak’s private bank and 360 One WAM Ltd., all expanding to capture a booming client base.

India’s wealth management industry is projected to double its assets to $2.3 trillion by March 2029, from $1.1 trillion in March 2024. Tens of thousands of new millionaires are being created in the country each year, fueled by record-setting initial public offerings, private equity and venture-capital investments, and a strong equity market.

The rapid rise in rich clients has intensified competition among wealth managers, triggering aggressive hirings with sign-on bonuses, high commissions, and other incentives. However, banks remain constrained by regulation that limit the use of special compensation structures.

Still, Dixit said Axis Bank’s strength lies is its ability to provide a gamut of services including wealth management, banking, asset management, investment banking and capital markets. The firm ranks as the third-largest private bank in the country, according to data from industry publication Asian Private Banker for 2024.

Axis Bank managed 6.45 trillion rupees ($71.4 billion) worth of wealth assets under the Burgundy brand as of September. Of this, around 2.5 trillion rupees is overseen by Burgundy Private, caters to 15,250 ultra-high-net-worth clients, each with at least 50 million rupees in investible assets.

The bank also plans to launch multiple funds in early 2026 from Gujarat International Finance Tec-City, or GIFT City. It is looking to offer in-bound funds for non-resident Indian and wealthy clients through feeder and direct funds into India’s capital markets, in addition to outbound funds that invest in global equity markets and dollar-denominated structured products.