Japanese brokerage Nomura is planning to ramp up hiring at its Singapore and Hong Kong hubs as it seeks to further develop its global wealth management business, reported Reuters.

Ravi Raju, the head of Nomura’s international wealth management unit, has already started a hiring spree to target the increasing wealth in the Asian region.

Raju told the news agency in an interview: “All the studies done by external experts show that wealth in Asia is going to be growing at 8-10% on a yearly basis. The pie is growing and our piece of the pie is also expanding.”

As part of this move, the firm already brought onboard over 50 relationship managers from banks including Deutsche Bank, Citigroup, and BNP Paribas.

Raju further added: “We had a good first 12 months. As we have expanded with more relationship managers and they are onboarding their clients, our assets under management will continue to grow.”

He also told the news agency that the business from the firm’s existing bankers and clients also increased during this period.

Nomura added around 600 new customers in its global wealth management unit in the past 12 months, according to Raju.

In April 2020, Nomura added its ex-Japan wealth management unit to the wholesale division, which comprises its global markets and investment banking franchises.

This allowed the firm to offer large entrepreneurs and high-net-worth (HNW) individuals access to its financial products and investment banking services under a single roof.

A report by Bloomberg in December 2020 said that Nomura is planning to accelerate hiring in its wealth, fixed income businesses across Asia in the next two to three years.