The US bank has set out a number of predictions about how its HNW banking business will perform this year.

Citigroup intends to expand its Asia-Pacific consumer banking mass affluent and high net worth client base by around 10 per cent in 2019.

The US-based bank said that it wants to “tap into increasing growth across its priority markets in the region, including China, where it expects to see a 30 per cent increase in Citigold clients in 2019”.

The ambitions were set out yesterday in a statement covering a range of Citigroup’s business areas.

Through its Citigold and Citigold Private Client propositions, the bank’s Asia-Pacific Wealth Management business serves clients with investable assets of $100,000 to $10 million.

The bank said that business growth will be driven by physical and digital investments. Last year, Citigroup said that it grew the number of its mobile users by more than 1 million with a new mobile banking experience that includes wealth management digital tools such as portfolio diversification indexing and stress testing abilities. Citigroup is also rolling out video banking engagement further across the region for relationship managers to speak with clients on demand. This programme was launched in 2018 in India.

“Our clients increasingly want world class advisory delivered on their terms - either remotely, digitally or face to face. Our wealth hubs with world class trained RMs combined with digital wealth management tools offer clients a market-leading wealth management value proposition. We are confident the investments we have made and continue to make will support double digit client growth rates in 2019,” Gonzalo Luchetti, head of consumer banking for Asia-Pacific and EMEA, said..

Citigroup said that the mass affluent segment is one of the largest and fastest growing wealth segments in the region and is projected to hold $43.3 trillion in assets by 2020. (It cited data from PriceWaterhouseCoopers.)