Deutsche Bank AG is stepping up hiring for its Asian wealth-management business as part of a “multi-year” expansion to bolster a unit that has lost key executives and assets in recent years.
Deutsche Bank Wealth Management plans to add 50 client-facing positions during the second half of the year, including relationship managers, after hiring 13 employees last month, Lok Yim, the unit’s Asia-Pacific head, said yesterday in a phone interview.
Yim is trying to rebuild the German bank’s wealth business in Asia, which has seen two years of declining assets under management amid tighter regulations globally that have prompted banks to relinquish non-compliant clients.
Last year “was clearly a year that had a huge amount of uncertainties,” Yim said. “We also had some turbulence and people moving last year. We have had a degree of attrition, but we have proven that we can recover very, very well.”
Client assets at Deutsche Bank’s Asia wealth unit slumped to US$45 billion at the end of last year, from US$52 billion in March 2015, according to the firm.
That amount had risen to US$48 billion as of March this year.
Deutsche Bank’s wealth-management business focuses on people who hold assets of between US$5 million and US$25 million at the firm, Yim said.
While wealth in the region is mainly driven by China, Indonesia and India, “there are clearly opportunities in Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong and Taiwan,” he said.
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