Bank of China, the second largest lender in the Peoples' Republic, predicts that its private banking clients will grow from several hundred to more than 1,000 over the next two years. This translates into a total amount of CNY10 billion ($1.35 billion) wealth from the private banking clients with liquid financial assets above $1 million said Dr Huang Jinlao, marketing director of the Personal Banking Department in an interview with the local media. Bank of China became the first Chinese-funded bank to provide domestic private banking services in March last year. Previously, it had five years' experience in middle and high-end management and had 770,000 affluent clients, as well as a team of more than 2,000 wealth managers. "It's quite possible that this wealth management market will increase at an annual rate more than 100 per cent, as this market is relatively new in China," said Mr Huang. "We can collaborate with our strategic partners like the Royal Bank of Scotland and UBS to provide a wide array of customer-tailored personal banking services, including investment consulting, securities, insurance and others." China Merchants Bank and China CITIC Bank opened private banking offices last August, and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the country's largest commercial bank, and China Construction Bank are both in advanced preparations. The biggest bottleneck for Chinese-funded banks in providing private banking services is that they still lack enough experienced wealth managers. "In the US and European countries, the private banking managers are normally above 40 years old, in Singapore about 35, and in China around 30," said Mr Huang.