Barclays to amplify operations in South and SE Asia

Barclays Wealth is set to quadruple assets and increase bankers in Singapore and other parts of the region.

Barclays Plc plans to quadruple the amount of money it manages for rich clients in South and Southeast Asia in the next five years by injecting capital and adding staff at its private-banking unit in the region.

The number of bankers covering non-resident Indians from Singapore and Hong Kong, as well as Malaysia and Indonesia, will rise by 60% by year-end and more than double by the end of 2011, said Srinivas Siripurapu, head of Southeast Asia and South Asia at London-based Barclays Wealth, in an interview on Sunday.

UK’s 3rd largest lender, Barclays said in February it will invest 350 million pounds ($517 million) in its wealth management unit.

In Asia, Barclays is entering a battle for private-banking assets and managers that the regional head of Credit Suisse Group AG’s Clariden Leu unit last week warned may drive up compensation costs.

Barclays has “these huge plans and vision of growing to a certain level, that’s what makes it exciting,” said Siripurapu, who joined the bank last August. “Everybody is growing I agree, but we are trying to grow much more than others.”

View the full story in Bloomberg.