HONG KONG—As Citigroup Inc. moves to shed most of its consumer banking operations across Asia, it is planning to scale up what it sees as a more-lucrative endeavor: serving the rising number of wealthy entrepreneurs and their businesses in the region.
The New York-based bank intends to recruit 1,100 private bankers and relationship managers as well as 1,200 technical and operational staffers in Hong Kong and Singapore, as part of a plan to grow assets under management for clients in Asia to $450 billion by 2025, according to Peter Babej, CEO of Citi Asia Pacific.
That represents a 50% increase from the roughly $300 billion that Citigroup currently manages for wealthy people in Asia. Achieving the new target won’t be easy; Citigroup’s assets under management for such clients grew just 18% from $255 billion in 2015. Other global banks, including JPMorgan and HSBC Holdings PLC, are also trying to get a bigger share of the same market, particularly in China.
“It’s a very bold move, a decisive move and a difficult move,” Mr. Babej said in an interview Friday. The 57-year-old longtime investment banker, who started running Citigroup’s Asia operations in October 2019, oversees a region that is the bank’s largest revenue and profit contributor outside of North America.
The third-largest U.S. bank by assets has long been the only American company with a sizable retail banking network across Asia. Citigroup also has a full-fledged institutional business that ranges from investment banking and corporate lending to treasury and trade solutions. Each quarter, the bank’s Asian network handles transactions totaling about $30 trillion, according to Mr. Babej.
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