Some banks headquartered outside of Asia have pulled back wealth management offerings in the region, but France's largest bank has no such plans, and intends to push forward.

While some Europe-headquartered banks have retreated from Asian private banking, BNP Paribas’s wealth arm aims to significantly increase the number of advisors in the region, a report says.

The Paris-listed bank has been investing and hiring in Asia for several years and will continue to intensify its presence, Vincent Lecomte, co-head of the French bank’s wealth management business, has told Bloomberg in an interview.

To that end, BNP Paribas intends to grow organically, Lecomte said. 

“The best way for us to grow is to attract new clients as well as new teams,” Lecomte was quoted as saying at the firm’s Paris offices. The bank intends to add a few dozen relationship managers by 2020 in Asia to advise clients on investments. At present, BNP Paribas employs 270, most of them in Hong Kong and Singapore but also in Taiwan and India. 

Some private banks are finding it hard to make enough profit in Asia, but this opens opportunities for competitors, Lecomte said.

A number of European banks have sold and spun off Asian private banking and wealth businesses, citing inability to generate sufficiently profitable scale and revenues. Such names include ABN AMRO, Barclays and Societe Generale. Australia-headquartered ANZ has sold its Asia wealth arm. On the flipside, Switzerland’s UBS, Credit Suisse, Julius Baer, Pictet and Lombard Odier, among others, have Asia business lines. HSBC, the Hong Kong/London-listed global bank, along with Citi, JP Morgan and Standard Chartered, have a significant presence (Standard Chartered is listed in the UK but earns much of its revenue in Asia). 

Royal Bank of Scotland has sold Asia- and Zurich-based assets to Geneva’s Union Bancaire Privée, while Banque Internationale à Luxembourg has shuttered its Singapore office, while shifting focus to locations such as Dubai. The Asian market, which has grown strongly, has proven more difficult for some firms to crack than expected, given costs of doing business in expensive centres such as Singapore, for example, or a desire by local clients for local providers (DBS, OCBC and UOB) that are seen as more culturally attuned to their needs.

Another issue that has arisen in the past 12 months is that two banks - Falcon Private Bank and BSI - have been kicked out of Singapore by the local regulator, citing lax controls and lapses over Malaysia-linked money laundering. The departure of such banks narrows the field of available suppliers, creating opportunities for rivals.