The branch at Raffles Place — one of six in the city-state — will shut on Feb 28, according to a notice sent to customers. HSBC expects to open an upgraded wealth center in Singapore Land Tower in February, a spokesman said in response to a Bloomberg News query.

The shift underscores how global lenders are retreating from traditional retail banking in Singapore to pursue the region’s booming wealth management market. Citigroup Inc. closed its last branch in the city-state in 2024 as part of a similar pivot, while HSBC has been pruning retail assets in selective markets over the past few years.

Singapore remains a priority market for HSBC and its distribution footprint in the country will be unchanged, the spokesman said, adding that the new Raffles Place center aligns with the bank’s strategy to convert branches into wealth centers.

The move comes less than two weeks after HSBC opened a strategic review of its Singapore insurance business, as part of chief executive officer Georges Elhedery’s global simplification push.

Its Raffles Place retail branch opened in 2018 under a three-year plan to expand the bank’s consumer and wholesale banking businesses in Singapore. The bank has three other wealth centers in the city-state, with the most recent opening at Star Vista in April.