A report claims that Pictet is changing how it pays managers as part of an expansion drive.

A fresh story has hit the wires claiming that Pictet, which operates in regions including Asia, is changing how it pays managers. Several weeks ago a report said that the Geneva-based private bank was stepping up a bidding war for talent.

Bloomberg said that the group intends to change how it compensates managers as it looks to boost hiring. The news service cited unnamed sources and Pictet declined to comment.

The bank, founded in 1805, wants to offer new hires a model that ties relationship managers’ pay more directly to performance and how much revenue they generate, the report, which did not go into specific details, said.

Last year private banking was jolted when the former chief executive of rival bank Julius Baer, Boris Collardi, joined Pictet as a partner.

Pictet has appointed a number of senior figures from Julius Baer. Daniel Savary, and 10 other employees from his team, will join Pictet by June this year.

In a report in November the newswire claimed that “bankers spanning the globe from Miami to Hong Kong have been contacted by Collardi”. It was also reported that Collardi is focusing on added resources in Asia.

The reference to Asia, in fact, is a reminder that a few weeks ago, Singapore’s private banking talent market was dubbed in one report as “crazy”, although that remark has also been criticised as an exaggeration. For all the vaunted vast new wealth of Asia, some private banks have struggled to achieve critical mass of business there, selling their Asian businesses to local players such as OCBC and DBS, for example. Barclays, Societe Generale, ABN AMRO and ANZ have also sold local Asian wealth arms.

As reported a few days ago, Pictet said that for the calendar year ended 31 December 2018, it reported a 5.7 per cent rise in operating income to SFr2.666 billion ($2.7 billion), and a 4.1 per cent increase in consolidated net profit to SFr596 million. Assets under management or custody amounted to SFr496 billion at 31 December 2018, slightly lower than at 31 December 2017. Inflows and outflows almost offset each other, resulting in net new money of SFr1 billion. The core tier 1 capital ratio stood at 21.1 per cent.