The US-headquartered banking group wants to build out its offering to high net worth clients down under.

Citigroup’s Australian business intends to hire 100 new relationship managers over the next three years and triple the number of mass affluent and high net worth client it serves, saying it is confident of progress in the wake of strong results.

The US-headquartered bank said that “Citi Australia is repositioning its wealth management business to focus on meeting the needs of Australia’s affluent high net worth investors, a rapidly growing segment of its client base”.

Last year, Citi Australia logged a 30 per cent rise in net new money and 14 per cent gain in assets under management from a year before. (The HNW business is distinct from Citi Private Bank, which serves ultra-high net worth individuals.)

Such a move suggests that while Australia is a developed economy, it is seen by such banks as a lucrative opportunity, particularly at a time when certain domestic players have been restructuring and, in the case of Commonwealth Bank of Australia, hit by regulatory and legal woes. (See here.) The landscape has also been affected by the move two years ago by UBS, the world’s largest wealth manager, to spin off its wealth arm via a management buyout.

“Citi globally has been an advisor and manager of choice for wealthy individuals and families for the past 200 years, and we see an opportunity to leverage that expertise and better serve and grow our clients in Australia,” Gonzalo Luchetti, head of Asia-Pacific retail banking, said in a statement yesterday.

Business expansion will include new products and solutions including a digital currency account tailored for clients investing and transacting in a range of currencies; continued innovation and investment in digital service platforms and the introduction of tools such as Total Wealth Access and Portfolio 360, which give a single view of clients’ investment portfolio); and the rollout of video banking.

“Australia has the third largest pool of high net worth individuals in Asia Pacific with more than 230,000 people with $1 million or more in investible assets; and with nearly 70 per cent of high net worth individuals in APAC holding investments outside their home country, there is opportunity for Citi Australia to leverage its global brand awareness in the region and capture a larger share of this group,” Luchetti said.

Citi says it is among the three largest wealth managers in the region.

Across Asia-Pacific as a whole, Citi manages $218 billion and more than 400,000 investment clients.