Credit Suisse said that it added 150 people to its private banking unit in Singapore in 2005, bringing the total number to 450. In a Blo...

Credit Suisse said that it added 150 people to its private banking unit in Singapore in 2005, bringing the total number to 450. In a Bloomberg report, Didier Von Daeniken, head of the Zurich-based bank’s South-east Asian private banking unit, said that Singapore now ties with London as the company’s biggest offices for private banking outside Zurich. Mr Von Daeniken believes that private banking in Singapore can grow by 15 per cent to 25 per cent this year and that Credit Suisse can grow faster than the market as a whole. “In Asia, Singapore is the fastest-growing wealth management centre,” Mr Von Daeniken told reporters in Singapore. He added: “As a rich Chinese entrepreneur that made a lot of money in the past two or three years, there is a high likelihood that you are not going to choose Hong Kong but you are going to choose Singapore.”