Barclays Wealth, the wealth management division of Barclays, has appointed a new Asia economist from HSBC.

Barclays Wealth, the wealth management division of Barclays, has named Wellian Wiranto as Asia economist with effect from 19 December 2011.

Wiranto was previously as Asian economist of global research at HSBC Bank in Singapore, where he was responsible for the bank's major ASEAN economies, as well as research ideas on China and India. Prior to that, he was a senior economist at the Economic Policy Department of the Monetary Authority of Singapore. 

In this new role, Wiranto will be responsible for driving research and providing economic analysis of regional markets. He is also part of the Barclays Wealth Global Investment Strategy Group which focuses on interpreting market economics for private banking clients in the region. He reports directly to Benjamin Yeo, head of research, economics and strategy, Asia. 

Barclays Wealth continues to expand in Asia, recently appointing Carol Chen from UBS to become market head for Greater China and Michelle Ho from HSBC Private Bank as senior banker for the same region. In an interview with this publication, Pakorn Boonya-kurkul, the head of North Asia, had said that UK wealth manager is set to add over 20 senior private bankers to its Greater China unit in the twelve months. (See related story here.)