The Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) has completed its acquisition of the commercial and retail business of the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) in Singapore. ANZ intends to boost its wealth management operations.
The lender is also looking to increase its headcount in the country across all its business segments by 25 percent in 2011 to take advantage of the growth of Asia.
ANZ now serves about 300,000 customers across its business units in the country, with the takeover of RBS. It also aims to leverage on the new business to increase its wealth management operations in Asia.
“With the Australian, New Zealand connections, there’s a lot of people flow between Singapore and the region as well as Australia and New Zealand,” said Mr. Bill Foo, CEO of ANZ Singapore.
“We believe we are able to harness this space. There are about 20,000 Australians and Kiwis living in Singapore, so it’s quite a big market for us to start with in the retail space,” he added.
According to ANZ, it will employ 500 staff in the country over the next 12 months. However, it will not expand its network of six branches just yet.
“In Singapore, because we are serving a niche market in the premier segment of about US$100,000 and above, we believe that having a branch in every neighbourhood is not our strategy and not what our customers require,” said Mr. Foo.
“But we will be building up our other channels and touch points through our call centres.”
The acquisition of Asian RBS assets was first announced by ANZ in August 2009 for around US$550 million. The acquisition is almost complete, with Taiwan, Hong Kong, Vietnam and the Philippines already secured, and the takeover of the commercial, retail and wealth business of RBS in Indonesia expected to be sealed by next month.