The Islamic Bank of Asia, the Islamic banking unit of Singapore's DBS Group, plans to expand from its Singapore base into the Gulf this year to target the $1 trillion global market for Shariah-compliant services. The bank, which was launched in May, is 60 per cent owned by DBS, southeast Asia's largest bank group. DBS invested $250 million in the new venture and plans to attract "high-net worth" individuals with new investment products in the next 6 to 18 months. Chief executive Vince Cook said the bank plans to increase staff to 60 by year-end from the current 40 and is looking to open a representative office in Bahrain to offer corporate finance, wealth management and investment services. "Our focus is very much cross-border," Mr Cook told Bloomberg. "We would start fairly small, get our feet wet. The environment in Bahrain is quite conducive for Islamic banking. It enables us to keep a close eye on the market." Singapore is encouraging companies to widen their range of Islamic products to woo investors from the Middle East, in a bid to increase the city state's share of a market estimated to grow to $2.8 trillion by 2015. Singapore has about S$2 billion ($1.3 billion) of Shariah-compliant property funds and $500 million of Islamic insurance funds, according to the central bank.