The India Arc
How the World’s Banks Have Approached India
Two decades of strategy in one view. Each band is a global firm’s India posture over time — an onshore presence, offshore-only coverage of the same clients, or a partnership structure. Diamonds mark the structural moves: entries, exits, re-entries, acquisitions, and deals. Grouped by how each firm answered the same question — build onshore, or serve the diaspora from abroad. Hover for detail; click a firm for its full journey.
Exited India — then partnered back in
Exited India — then rebuilt onshore
Exited India — now covering NRIs offshore only
Built an onshore presence from offshore
Onshore throughout — never exited
Never went onshore — serving NRIs purely offshore
The Other Direction — Indian Firms Going Global
These firms start where the global banks are trying to reach: onshore in India. Their journey runs the opposite way — following Indian wealth offshore into Dubai, Singapore, and GIFT City. Onshore India is their home base, not a strategic choice, so they sit outside the arc above.
360 ONE
India's UHNW leader: built an NRI offshore platform, bought UBS's India onshore book, handed UBS warrants for a 4.95% stake.
Offshore: dubai · singapore · gift city
ASK Private Wealth
Blackstone-backed Indian wealth arm that planted a DIFC flag in Jan 2025 to bridge NRIs and global investors into India.
Offshore: dubai
Avendus Wealth Management
KKR-then-Mizuho-owned Indian wealth arm — Gulf/Japanese capital buying into India's wealth machine, with no offshore diaspora branch of its own verified.
Client Associates
The stay-at-home outlier: a ~$6.1bn Indian multi-family office with no offshore office — the counterpoint to the Dubai rush.
ICICI Prudential Asset Management
~$130bn Indian fund giant that planted a DIFC branch in Mar 2026 to sell India strategies to GCC and Africa institutions.
Offshore: dubai
IIFL Capital Services
~$30bn Indian wealth manager (ex-IIFL Securities) run by two ASK alumni; Dubai only signalled, not yet built.
Kotak Mahindra Bank
India's UHNW bank runs an NRI stack offshore — GIFT City IBU + a DIFC Dubai branch — while buying Deutsche's India book.
Offshore: dubai · gift city · singapore · london · new york
Marcellus Investment Managers
Indian PMS house that wraps a global-stocks dollar portfolio in GIFT City to court NRI money PFIC- and India-CGT-free.
Offshore: gift city
Motilal Oswal Asset Management
Indian asset manager using a GIFT City dollar-fund platform to sell India equity to NRIs, foreign family offices and institutions.
Offshore: gift city
Nuvama Private
PAG-backed Indian private bank running a full NRI offshore stack: DIFC Dubai (2024) plus a MAS-licensed Singapore arm.
Offshore: dubai · singapore
Waterfield Advisors
Advisory-only Indian multi-family office pushing offshore via GIFT City and a 'Global Indians' segment; $18M-funded in 2025.
Offshore: gift city
What the Arcs Reveal
Sell India onshore, double down on the NRI offshore — a pattern repeated four times
The corridor's defining move is a repeat: a global bank sells its India onshore wealth business, then re-anchors its Indian franchise around the non-resident-Indian client offshore. The sell-down has happened four times in thirteen years.
Morgan Stanley sold its India private wealth unit (~$800m AUM) to Standard Chartered in 2013 — and, having also sold its EMEA/UK/UAE private wealth to Credit Suisse the same year, never rebuilt a diaspora desk. Citi exited India onshore private banking in 2021 and sold its entire India consumer business, including wealth management, to Axis Bank (completed 1 March 2023), retaining only its institutional clients in India while covering wealthy NRIs from its offshore wealth hubs. UBS sold its India onshore wealth to 360 ONE in April 2025 while keeping the Global-Indian offshore wallet. Deutsche Bank agreed to sell its India retail, affluent private banking and wealth business to Kotak in June 2026, its release retaining a 'continued focus on global ultra-high net worth clients (including non-resident Indians) outside of India.'
Every seller but Morgan Stanley re-anchored offshore; each buyer — Standard Chartered, Axis, 360 ONE, Kotak — used the purchase to bulk up onshore. Several global players never sold at all — Barclays, Standard Chartered, Julius Baer and LGT still run India onshore wealth today (Standard Chartered and Julius Baer built theirs by buying Morgan Stanley's and Merrill Lynch's exits) — and Barclays and Julius Baer now market that continuity as a differentiator.