The group wants Asia to contribute 20 to 30 per cent of its global revenue within the next five years, up from 10 per cent now.

ABN AMRO, the Dutch state-owned lender, is planning to as much as triple its Asian business within the next five years, with a focus on private banking.

The group wants Asia to contribute 20 to 30 per cent of its global revenue within the next five years, up from 10 per cent now, said Maaike Steinebach, country head of Hong Kong and head of energy, commodities and transport businesses in Asia, at an event last week, confirmed a spokesperson.

The growth drive will focus on Hong Kong, Singapore, Shanghai, Tokyo and Sydney and will target private banking, securities clearing, energy and commodities financing and diamond jewellery financing.

The bank would not say how many people it planned to hire. 

The bank has transformed itself within the last five years in a bid to scale back costs and focus on its strengths. ABN AMRO has a presence in 25 countries with 24,000 staff, down from 70 countries with 78,000 staff, in pre-crisis days. 

It has also undergone a number of identity changes during that period. After hitting a liquidity crisis in November 2007, the Dutch bank was bought for approximately €72 billion (US$93.4 billion) by a consortium of Fortis, Banco Santander and Royal Bank of Scotland which between the three of them, divvied up the operations. Fortis took the Dutch and Belgium business, Santander acquired the Brazil and Italian operations while the UK bank got the wholesale banking operations and the Asian business. 

A year later Fortis Bank Nederland had also hit liquidity problems, and was partially privatised by the Dutch government. July 2010 saw the end of a complicated restructuring of both banks, during which time the Dutch part of Fortis was integrated with ABN AMRO to form ABN AMRO Bank.