'We have doubled our staff in the offices to 160 and we also plan to hire more staff as Asia will be our key growth market in the next five to 10 years,' said Jimmy Lee Kong-eng, Asia chief executive of Clariden Leu.

The global financial crisis hit the US and European markets hard, said Lee, but Asian markets were not as badly affected thanks to India and China's fast-growing economies.

'We believe Asia will have the highest number of initial public offerings worldwide in the next five to 10 years. These activities are going to produce more wealthy entrepreneurs who could turn to us to take care of their wealth,' he said. Clariden Leu targets clients who have total assets of more than US$30 million. While it focuses on wealth management products and services, it is part of Credit Suisse Group which also offers investment banking services.

Unlike commercial banks that face a need to raise their regulatory capital levels under post-crisis regulatory requirements, private banks, which focus on managing wealth for customers, do not need a large capital cushion, said Lee.

'Private banking is not a capital-intensive business but it is a very labour-intensive business. We have to ensure we have many high-quality relationship managers to serve our clients.'

The bank now has one relationship manager to serve 25 clients. By comparison, many retail banks have one staff member to serve about 250 to 300 customers.

Other private banks and the private banking arms of commercial banks also want to expand their services in Hong Kong. Standard Chartered Bank says it will increase its team of relationship managers to 750 in 2013, up from about 450 now. China, India and Indonesia are its focus in Asia.

JPMorgan Private Bank, which aims to triple its Asia business in the next five years, has relocated top staff to Hong Kong. Douglas Wurth, who is in charge of JPMorgan's private banking business outside the US, moved to Hong Kong from New York in February last year.

Wurth is responsible for over US$200 billion worth of assets under management for wealthy clients. The bank, which now has over 100 senior client-relationship staff to handle wealth management for customers in Hong Kong and Singapore, plans to increase its headcount by 30 to 40 per cent this year.

French private bank CIC Investor Services has also expanded aggressively in recent years. Timothy Lo, its managing director, said Asia was a natural target of expansion for private bankers.

'Asia has produced the largest number of millionaires worldwide in recent years. The region has also looked increasingly attractive after western markets were hard-hit by the global financial crisis,' he said.

Lo said this trend was set to continue in the next few years as the mainland, India, and Taiwan were expected to see rapid economic growth while some western markets were still recovering from the crisis.

Clariden's Lee believes yuan-denominated investment products will be one focus of private banks' product line-up for wealthy customers.

'Many customers want to know more about yuan products. But we will not hard-sell them any products. We would seek to understand their needs and tailor-make solutions to help them to manage their wealth and to pass it onto the next generation,' Lee said.

CIC's Lo said private bank clients also demanded more simple and conservative products.

'After the financial crisis private bank customers are more aware of risk factors. They want plain-vanilla products that are easy to understand and do not carry excessive risk,' he said.

On the money

Private banks are increasing staff to serve their wealthy clients

The maximum percentage increase in the number of relationship managers planned by JPMorgan: 40%