HSBC Unifies UAE Private Banking Under One Executive

HSBC’s private banking operation in the United Arab Emirates now runs across three distinct channels, and the bank has placed a single executive in charge of making them work together. Feras Zaid, Head of Private Bank, UAE, oversees the onshore business alongside operations in Abu Dhabi Global Market and the Dubai International Financial Centre. His remit covers both offshore and onshore private banking. The practical test of the set-up is simple: can clients handle local requirements, such as operating accounts, deposits, credit cards, mortgages and investments, within the same relationship as their international wealth arrangements?

The delivery side extends well beyond the UAE itself. Clients can book wealth through centres including Hong Kong, Singapore, Geneva, Luxembourg, London, Guernsey and New York, with Zaid describing the UAE team as the point of coordination for local and international requirements. An entrepreneur may need private banking for personal and family assets, corporate and investment banking for the business and corporate transactions, while employees can be served through HSBC’s retail division. The bank’s UAE operations bring those services together alongside wealth management and asset management, and the country also houses its regional headquarters. HSBC marks 80 years in the UAE in 2026, a history Zaid sees reflected in its relationships with local families and in the banking professionals it has trained, many of whom have since moved into other institutions and businesses.

Zaid returned to HSBC in January 2025 and took responsibility for its entire UAE private banking business in August 2026. He brings more than two decades of corporate banking experience to a role that connects personal wealth with the bank’s broader services. A fuller account of his appointment and outlook appears at https://www.hubbis.com/article/feras-zaid-on-the-changing-needs-of-wealth-in-the-uae.

Meanwhile, the operational challenge he describes stems from how the wealth itself is changing. Wealth created in the UAE is growing at the same time as capital arrives with families and businesses from overseas. Until around 2018 or 2019, Zaid says, the country was predominantly a net exporter of wealth, with much of its locally generated capital invested overseas. He has since seen a marked increase in wealth arriving, even as investors continue to pursue opportunities abroad. “You have wealth being created and wealth being imported at the same time,” he says.

That dual flow creates two distinct service requirements. Locally generated wealth often needs investment direction and diversification. Families arriving from overseas may already have those arrangements in place and instead want help connecting with the local economy and its institutions. Founders and business owners are relocating, with their companies or in a personal capacity, citing lifestyle, favourable tax structures, ease of doing business, political stability and the country’s position between East and West. Senior executives are also arriving as international companies expand, and fund managers are establishing offices close to the wealth generated in Abu Dhabi, Dubai and the other emirates, including the country’s sovereign and quasi-sovereign investment institutions.

Family offices are changing the nature of the work private bankers actually do. Zaid recalls family assets commonly being managed by their creator, a chief financial officer or the operating company’s corporate structures. More families now have dedicated professional teams overseeing their wealth, which means private bankers increasingly deal with counterparts who manage capital professionally. Discussions become more demanding, covering investment strategy, implementation and the connections needed to execute a family’s plans. Zaid expects more family offices to be established locally or relocate from abroad, and he notes that their presence can attract others. “Family offices like to sit next to each other,” he observes, since a larger concentration gives them access to a growing network of investors and specialists.

Financing is another area where the bank’s delivery capacity matters. Its offering runs from Lombard loans against investment portfolios to financing involving certain unlisted company shares and real estate, including trophy properties and other assets. That range matters for business owners whose wealth includes substantial illiquid holdings, because alongside managing their investments the bank can help them raise liquidity against assets beyond a securities portfolio. The investment offering itself covers equities, fixed income, hedge funds and alternatives, and Zaid says the bank’s scale and relationships help clients access funds, private equity and investments in growing companies internationally.

By contrast with the outbound flows of a decade ago, growing capital within the country is now encouraging the public and private sectors to create more domestic investment channels. Looking ahead, Zaid expects global equities, fixed income, alternative investments and real estate to remain important destinations for UAE-based wealth. Real estate is one area where he sees scope for change: a market historically associated with individual investors could draw greater institutional participation through funds and real estate investment trusts, a shift he links to the development of regulatory frameworks around property investment and management. He also expects local equity markets to deepen and attract more institutional investors, and founders establishing or expanding businesses offer another route for investment within the country. Together, these developments could give families more ways to invest part of their wealth locally.

His own priorities centre on serving families across their personal and business lives, building relationships that can continue across generations, which requires the private banking team to draw on expertise elsewhere in the bank and in other markets. That approach draws on a career spent with company owners and senior executives. Born in the UAE into a family of education professionals, with a father who was a principal at a government school in the country, Zaid completed a bachelor’s degree in business and finance at Damascus University. His first full-time banking role was in the corporate banking division of Union National Bank, which later merged with Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, where he started in a junior position he treated as an apprenticeship. “First jobs are where you don’t get your earning, you get your learning,” he says. He progressed to credit analysis and then became a relationship officer at another regional bank before HSBC recruited him in 2008 as a corporate banking relationship manager in Sharjah. He moved to the bank’s large corporate team in Dubai and, in 2016, into global banking, working across corporate and investment banking until 2020. He then joined Mashreq Bank, with responsibilities including the public sector, commodities, oil and gas, as well as periods covering education, healthcare, aviation and utilities. By 2024, discussions with company owners and chief executives were increasingly strategic, and private banking offered a way to apply that experience directly to their personal wealth. His initial role on returning to HSBC was to lead a team serving Arab, Emirati and expatriate clients.

Outside work, Zaid’s favourite company is that of his wife and son, whom he describes as his best friends. They enjoy travelling together, with Italy and Scotland among his preferred destinations, and he reads widely about financial markets, financial history and history more generally. One favourite is Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari, particularly its account of how money, government and other modern concepts developed. His description of life outside banking is modest: “I don’t climb mountains. I don’t fight with sharks.” He enjoys a peaceful life with his family and books.