Credit Suisse has named former Merrill Lynch executive Ken Chapman as head of its wealth consulting team.

Credit Suisse has made two new senior hires for its UK private banking business, naming Ken Chapman as a director in wealth planning and head of the wealth consulting team, and Vivienne Ng as a director and relationship manager.

Chapman, who is thought to be joining the Swiss bank in September, was latterly head of UK wealth structuring at Merrill Lynch. He took up this role in 2006, having previously been a director at UBS Wealth Management. In his new role Chapman will be working with relationship managers on the tax and wealth planning needs of Credit Suisse's client base.

Credit Suisse is understood to be integrating its wealth consulting team into its market area advisory and sales function. Under the changes, Chapman’s team will report to Ian Hale, head of advisory and sales, rather than Andy Wigman, head of wealth management teams, as before.

Ng joins from Lombard Odier Darier Hentsch, where she had been an executive director driving the Swiss firm’s private client business within the Chinese and Asian high and ultra high net worth client segments. In her new role it is understood that she will sit within Credit Suisse’s UK resident non-domicile team focusing on Chinese-speaking clients including those using the investor visa programme. (The UK government is trying to boost investment from wealthy foreigners by making it easier for them to make their home in the UK as a result).

In other recent major hires, earlier this month Credit Suisse hired Swiss rival UBS' former head of equities for China, as part of its ongoing drive to build up its Chinese franchise.

Nicole Yuen joined as a managing director and head of Greater China equities, based in Hong Kong. Yuen assumes overall responsibility for all the bank’s existing China equities business and will spearhead the build-out of the bank's onshore capabilites there.

She reports to Ali Naqvi, Credit Suisse's head of equities for Asia-Pacific. Switzerland's second largest bank has been making strides in China recently, Francesco de Ferrari, Credit Suisse's head of private banking for Asia-Pacific, told WealthBriefingAsia in a recent interview. (WealthBriefingAsia is a sister publication to this website).