Zurich-based Falcon Private Bank appears well on track to reaching its stated goal of nearly doubling its assets under management over the next five years, its CEO having told Arabian Business that the bank saw net new inflows amounting to $541 million in the first two months of the year.

Eduardo Leemann told the publication that the bank had had a very successful 2010 because its total new money went from $12.2 billion to $12.75 billion at the end of 2010. Of this over $540 million was generated from the UAE, he said.

Towards the end of 2010 the bank said it was looking to garner an additional $20 billion in new money in the next five years by tapping the increasingly affluent emerging markets – particularly the Middle East – and has set itself a target of $1 billion in Middle Eastern assets by the end of this year. After expanding in what it regards as the key Gulf states of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait, the bank plans to look to Indonesia, China and Russia, Leemann told the publication.

Additional hires of course form part of the bank’s ambitious expansion plans; it has said that it is planning to take on up to 15 more relationship managers by the end of 2011.

The bank, once part of the US insurance giant AIG, was acquired by Abu Dhabi's Aabar Investment in 2008. Since then the bank has trimmed back its institutional services to a handful of core units in order to focus on private banking. The bank reportedly lost $1 billion in assets as a result, but this was offset by private banking inflows of $1.83 billion.