Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation will increase its sales staff in India by 400 from the current 2,000 by the end of December to push its marketing personal financial services business.

The bank's marketing spend in 2004 for personal financial services will be four to five times that of 2003. In 2005, this figure is expected to double.

HSBC had so far invested less than its competitors in the personal financial services segment and that is getting reversed to tap the growing retail banking market, the bank's personal financial services head in India Nicholas Winsor said on Monday.

Winsor till recently was head of personal financial services in Singapore. HSBC will focus on retail banking, credit cards and wealth management as part of its personal financial services push.

He said the retail assets base of HSBC in India doubled in 2004. Its credit cards base rose by 25 per cent to about 700,000 cardholders and wealth management business jumped three to four times.

HSBC has one million retail customers but income generation per customer is low.

However, the bank sees fast expansion of the retail banking segment. HSBC plans to support its branch distribution through the use of multiple channels like Internet banking.

The bank is experimenting with a few variations from branch selling, including a distribution channel, which will be "something less than a full service branch".

HSBC India will look to leverage on the global strengths in wealth management. Customers from the middle class segment would increasingly be tapped to boost personal financial services business, Winsor said.