Deutsche Bank is pushing ahead with the consolidation of its global wealth-management operations.
Despite the detrimental effect on client assets in locations in the region such as Australia and Japan, where it has shut booking centres, Deutsche Bank Wealth Management (DBWM) will continue to cut costs and rationalise the business.
Germany's biggest lender plans to focus on growing its wealth business in Hong Kong, Singapore, the U.S. and Switzerland, and will close more booking centres between now and the end of 2018. This according to according to Fabrizio Campelli, Deutsche Bank's head of global wealth management.
Ambitious Target
«The cost of complexity, partly because of regulation and the controlled environment that we want to enforce, has gone up significantly and become too high,» Campelli said in a recent interview with Bloomberg.
In Asia the bank intends to add 50 client-facing positions including relationship managers during the second half or 2017. An ambitious target in a region where the fight for talent is intense. The German lender had a troubled time during 2016 which saw several senior departures that included the loss of its top man in Asia.
In October last year Ravi Raju, the former Hong Kong based Head of Deutsche Bank Wealth Management (DBWM) who had been with the bank since 2007, left for rival UBS. Raju was known to enjoy a strong loyalty from his senior management team and relationship managers.
