The bank has restructured some of its operations, creating the global market manager role and filling these slots to oversee parts of its Asia businesses.

Citi Private Bank has appointed Jørgen Weber Christensen as global market manager for the Philippines, effectively immediately. In this newly-expanded role by the bank, Singapore-based Christensen reports to Jyrki Rauhio, the firm’s South Asia head.

Prior to his latest appointment, Christensen was a team head in Citi Private Bank’s coverage team for the Philippines. He has more than 30 years of experience in banking and finance, including 15 covering the Philippines.

Christensen joined Citi Private Bank as a RM in 1999. Prior to Citi, he worked with JP Morgan Chase and Merrill Lynch in Singapore. He started his career at Danske Bank in Copenhagen and was transferred to Singapore in 1993 while he was with the bank.

The hire is the latest in a series of appointments following an expanded organisational and global market manager structure which Citi announced in December 2017. As part of this change, global market managers are being appointed in specific markets to better align the bank with clients in these markets and bring Citi Private Bank to its next growth phase. In February, Citi Private Bank appointed Adam Proctor as GMM for Singapore, Australia and New Zealand. In April, Simon Kastono was named GMM for Indonesia and Timothy Morse was appointed to the same rank for Thailand, Malaysia and Brunei.

The Philippines has been an active market for private client wealth management hires and moves in recent years, buoyed by an improving economic position. In April Credit Suisse won regulatory clearance to set up a representative office in the Philippines for its wealth management arm. In 2017 it appointed Michael De Guzman as country manager for Philippines and head of Philippines coverage for investment banking and capital markets. Christian Senn, a 30-year veteran of Credit Suisse’s private banking business, was also named as market group head for the Philippines in the Asian-Pacific part of the private bank, based in Singapore.

In November last year, Bank J Safra Sarasin appointed Bellen Chang as a managing director for client advisory in its ultra-high net worth team, focusing on the Philippines. A number of the major banks have representative offices in the country, such as Singapore-headquartered DBS; Bank of Singapore and United Overseas Bank. HSBC Private Banking has an office in the country; Standard Chartered’s private bank also is present in the country - in fact StanChar claims to be the oldest international bank in the jurisdiction, with a history there dating back to 1872.

In late June last year Manulife, the financial services group, said its one of its business arms has got the green light to provide trust and fiduciary services business in the Philippines.