Royal Bank of Scotland is looking to double client assets in private banking in Asia by 2015, according to a global wealth management executive.

The co-chief investment officer at RBS Wealth Management, Nick Cringle, said in a Bloomberg interview that the firm has set out a five-year plan to reverse the focus on the UK market. About 60 per cent of profit is now UK-related.

“The wealth business in Asia is slightly profitable,” Cringle, who is based in Hong Kong, was quoted as saying. “Will it be as profitable as we would have liked it to be in 2011? Not quite. But I think that every wealth manager has had the same experience. Clearly clients have been much less engaged in the context of investments.”

RBS, which today employs about 550 people in its offices in Singapore, Hong Kong and India, also said it expects to add to headcount next year.

The UK bank has already added relationship managers this year, for example in India where it has boosted its private banking division from 55 to 85 people.

Separately, the government-owned bank is in the process of rebranding all its international wealth and private banking operations as Coutts, the name of the UK private bank owned by RBS.