The global bank has hired a senior wealth products figure from Deutsche Bank in Singapore to runs its global products team in Hong Kong.

HSBC has appointed long-time Deutsche Bank executive Lavanya Chari to lead its global products, investments and collaboration business in private banking. Chari moved from London to Singapore with Deutsche in 2011, where she was managing director in charge of commodities and credit structuring.

She will take up her new role at HSBC in Hong Kong on 20 July, when she will be in charge of private banking and wealth product strategy and will lead the global investment products team serving private and personal banking clients, the bank said.

The top-five global bank merged its retail and private banking units earlier this year bolstering assets in the new venture to around $1.4 trillion. The move is part of large scale cost cutting and global restructuring at the Hong Kong-based bank.

Speaking before the health crisis took hold, head of wealth and personal banking at HSBC, Charlie Nunn, said that it was targeting three main growth markets of the UK, Mexico and Hong Kong, with the Asian focus on HNW clients and supporting the growing family office sector.

Chennai-born Chari will report globally to Christophe Guillemot, CEO of HSBC Private Banking based in Geneva, and to Annabel Spring in London. Spring moved from Australia’s troubled Commonwealth Bank last year to head HSBC’s customers and products business.

The bank said that Chari's appointment is part of “bringing a broader range of wealth expertise” to clients.

Chari studied aerospace engineering at the Indian Institute for Technology in Madras, and joined Deutsche Bank in London in 2002, where she held a number of senior positions in its wealth management and global markets businesses, most recently as global head of products and solutions in private banking.

She replaces Stuart Parkinson who left the bank after 17 years to join Lombard International as group CEO last month.