Credit Suisse has appointed Ray McGregor as managing director and head of Private Banking Australia. Mr McGregor replaces Nick Kaliakajaros, who has resigned from the bank.

Mr McGregor will be based in Sydney reporting functionally to Dr François Monnet, Head of Private Banking Southeast Asia and Australasia, and locally to country chief executive for Australia, David Trude.

Mr McGregor was previously the co-head of Credit Suisse Solution Partners for Asia Pacific since January 2007. Solution Partners is a unit of Credit Suisse's Private Banking division which provides sophisticated customised solutions to the Bank's ultra high net worth customer base.

Mr McGregor first joined Credit Suisse's Investment Banking business in 1996 and has extensive experience in the Asia Pacific and US markets having been based in Singapore, Tokyo and New York.

Before joining Credit Suisse, Mr McGregor was a Chartered Accountant at Coopers & Lybrand and Ernst & Young in Australia.

Credit Suisse says that Australia is one of the priority markets in its strategy of enhancing its global onshore private Banking footprint.

Since the launch of the Australia domestic private banking business, the bank has built up the local team and also acquired the corporate advisory business of Hindal, which focuses on the fast-developing small-to-mid-cap client segment.