One of the "big three" Asian lenders has put the finishing touches on another purchase of a wealth management operation in its region.

DBS’s purchase of Asian wealth and retail businesses of Australia-headquartered ANZ has been completed, adding another deal by the Singapore-listed lender that has seen it bulk up its offerings via acquisitions.

The acquisition involved ANZ wealth and retail banking operations in Singapore, Hong Kong, mainland China, Taiwan and Indonesia. The latest migration was conducted in Indonesia over the weekend. Since July 2017, DBS has been working towards a full completion of the migration in all markets by early 2018.

DBS announced it was buying Australia and New Zealand Banking Group’s units in October 2016 at a time when a number of lenders were spinning off Asian wealth units. DBS bought the ANZ units for about S$110 million above book value; in early 2014 it bought the Asian private bank of Societe Generale. A number of other groups headquartered outside Asia, such as Barclays, ABN AMRO and Royal Bank of Scotland, have sold Asian private banking business lines, typically stating they hadn’t achieved sufficient profitability and wanted to focus on core home markets.

About 90 per cent of deposits, assets under management and loans from ANZ were switched to DBS. As of December 2017, DBS’ total wealth assets under management were S$206 billion ($155.4 billion), with S$18 billion coming from ANZ. More than 90 per cent of ANZ staff in the five markets also moved over to DBS.

The purchase has added about 370,000 Indonesian clients to DBS; in Taiwan, some 520,000 customers were added, DBS said in a statement yesterday.

A few weeks ago, DBS stated it wanted to increase relationship manager headcount by between 10 and 20 per cent this year. DBS and its peers aim to capture rising Asia-Pacific wealth, noting that assets owned by wealthy Asians rose 8 per cent in 2016 to $18.8 trillion (source: Capgemini). While some banks haven’t turned Asia’s fast wealth growth into sufficient profit, other major international players, such as UBS, Credit Suisse, Julius Baer, BNP Paribas, Citi and HSBC, among others, continue to expand RM headcount and coverage. In the case of UBS, for example, it has boosted hiring in parts of Hong Kong, such as Kowloon and the New Territories. Credit Suisse has made Asia a key focus for growth at its private bank.

DBS recently issued its fourth-quarter and full-year results (see here).