BNP Paribas has made another senior appointment into its expanding Asian private bank by hiring a Standard Chartered executive director and team head.
Singapore-based Adrian Chong has joined the French firm as a business manager covering Southeast Asia. He spent three years at Stan Chart as head of business and sales management for ASEAN and South Asia private banking, according to his online profile.
Chong joins a growing list of recent recruits at BNP Paribas Wealth Management as it adds more manpower in a bid to bolster its Asian assets under management (AUM).
Earlier this month BNP took on Vishal Mirpuri, ex-head of listed derivatives at Deutsche Bank, as an MD within its Hong Kong ultra-high net worth team. In March, former Citi banker Vikas Jaidka came on board as head of non-resident Indian clients. Other new hires include Grace Tam, who joined from HSBC as chief investment adviser for Hong Kong, and Thai-coverage banker Charly Madan, who moved from Credit Suisse’s investment bank.
This recruitment is part of BNP’s plan, announced by co-chief executive Vincent Lecomte in June 2018, to become a top-five private bank in Asia by assets within three to five years. Lecomte said last August that he wants to recruit a few dozen Asian relationship managers by 2020, although headhunters told us at the time that more than 100 new RMs would be needed for BNP to achieve its AUM objective. BNP was the ninth largest private bank in Asia by the end of 2017, with $97.4bn in assets. Fifth placed Julius Baer manged $115bn.
While Chong is not an RM, senior business managers like him still help to drive AUM growth by organising bank-wide sales campaigns and product launches, for example.
Chong began his career by working as an investment analyst in Singapore’s Ministry of Finance from 2000 to 2005. He then joined PwC as a manager in the strategy and commercial due diligence advisory team. Chong broke into private banking in 2007 when he moved to UBS in Singapore as a business manager. Stan Chart hired him in 2015.
It’s not all one-way traffic at BNP Paribas Wealth Management, however. China market head Alfred Tsai left the firm earlier this month and is expected to join a boutique private bank.
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