HSBC Private Bank has launched an education programme for heirs of its ultra-high net worth (UHNW) clients, Spear’s can exclusively reveal.
The programme, which has been created in collaboration with MIT Sloan School of Management, is designed to help participants prepare to become ‘leaders of their family’s business and wealth’.
The six-week online course is open to next-gen inheritors aged 23 to 30 and will include modules on ‘family enterprise dynamics’, ‘the owner mindset’, ‘family unity’, ‘managing difficult conversations’, and ‘developing a future pathway’.
The first cohort of participants will include representatives from around the world; the course is set to begin on 3 November, finishing on 8 December.
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The course is part of HSBC Private Bank’s ‘Family Leaders’ programme, which is designed to support its wealthy clients amid the so-called Great Wealth Transfer, in which it is estimated upwards of $80 trillion will be passed from members of the Baby Boomer generation to their heirs.
The scale of the coming wealth transfer has led to increased focus on intra-family relationships among the world’s richest clans. ‘Family dynamics’ emerged as the single most important factor in UHNWs’ decisions as to when and how they pass on their wealth, according to research from the Bank of New York’s private banking division published last month.
Strikingly, nearly half of the US-based UHNW respondents in BNY Wealth’s study thought their heirs were unprepared to manage inherited wealth, with their beneficiaries’ lack of experience handling significant amounts of money named as the top concern.
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Such considerations are complicated further by UHNW families’ desire to preserve their ideals as well as their wealth. Data from HSBC Private Bank from December 2025 found that a majority of UHNW families said they were more concerned with passing on core values to the next generation than inheritance.
Several private banks and other institutions have implemented programmes of their own to address the next generation’s coming wealth inheritance.
Campden Wealth’s ‘family wealth essentials series’ has six distinct modules for UHNW families, including one on family communication and conflict management. The module preview quotes one family who completed the course as saying: ‘It was traumatic at the time, but it was the right thing to do for the business.’
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Coutts offers workshops to its clients’ children, who are typically between the ages of 21 and 35 when they take part, the bank said. The sessions are described as covering entrepreneurship, networking and managing reputational risk on social media, amongst other topics.
HSBC Private Bank’s CEO Ida Liu said the programme was designed to develop the technical capabilities and confidence UHNW heirs need ‘to navigate the family conversations that successful succession requires’.
She added: ‘Wealth transfer can fall short when the next generation inherits the family’s wealth and business without the necessary skills to lead. Our clients consistently tell us they want their children to gain experience managing the demands before the transition, not after it.’
