Royal Bank of Canada, which last week announced a big branding drive for its wealth management business, says it aims to more than double private banking assets in Asia to C$25 billion (around $23.8 billion) by 2015, according to Reuters.

The expectation was given by Barend Janssens, RBC's head of wealth management for emerging markets. He was speaking at the Reuters Global Wealth Management Summit in Singapore.

RBC Wealth Management, part of the Toronto- and New York-listed bank, has embarked upon a multi-year global advertising campaign targeting high net worth individuals and their advisors. The campaign marks the first time the bank specifically targets global wealth clients, and will use both print and online channels to reach the high net worth market and their intermediary advisors, including lawyers and accountants

Asia is important for RBC as it is for many of its peers. The latest annual Merrill Lynch-Capgemini World Wealth Report said Asia is home to 3.3 million millionaires, second only to North America, which has 3.4 million high net worth individuals, and ahead of Europe, which had 3.1 million.

A number of Western banks such as Julius Baer, Credit Suisse, JP Morgan and RBS Coutts – which is rebranding as Coutts – are targeting this market. In the case of Julius Baer, for instance, the Swiss private bank treats Asia as its second home market.

Janssens told the news service that RBC also expects to increase the number of frontline bankers and brokers in Asia to 100-120 by that time from around 60 now. Right now, RBC is focusing more on hiring people for support functions such as product development and compliance rather than relationship managers, he said.

RBC currently administers about C$11 billion in Asian private banking assets, and the region accounts for just a fraction of the C$525 billion administered by the bank globally.

The wealth management unit operates out of Singapore and Hong Kong, with representative offices in Brunei and Beijing.

Janssens said C$25 billion in assets would put the Canadian bank among the second tier of private banks in Asia. Such an asset base would provide the critical mass needed to justify the cost of building and maintaining a supporting infrastructure, he said.

To watch an interview with Reuters and George Lewis, RBC's global head of wealth management, please click here.