Credit Suisse has hired a managing director and market area head for its Greater China private banking business, as part of the Swiss bank's ongoing growth strategy in the region.

Credit Suisse
has hired a managing director and market area head for its Greater China
private banking business, as part of the Swiss bank's ongoing growth strategy in the region. 

Anna Wong starts the newly-created
role on October 24. She will be based in Hong Kong reporting to Marcel Kreis, head of private banking in Asia-Pacific.

From January 2012, she will
report to Francesco de Ferrari who takes over the role as head of private banking
Asia-Pacific.

Wong was most recently chief
executive for HSBC Broking Services (Asia) between 2009 and 2011. Prior to that, she was
managing director and co-head, Hong Kong market area at HSBC Private Bank.

She has 28 years of
experience in the banking and securities industry in Hong Kong, across securities and futures brokerage, private banking, commercial and corporate
banking as well as credit and risk management. Wong is a member of the Hong
Kong Securities and Futures Commission Advisory Committee and a director of the
Hong Kong Securities Institute.

“Wong will work closely with the respective market leaders and country chief executive across the Credit Suisse integrated bank to enhance its ability to capitalize on the synergies and business opportunities in Greater China, drive client interconnectivity across business divisions and markets to advance client market share,” said the bank in a statement. 

Credit Suisse has been making aggressive strides in Asia, where the population of high net worth individuals are forecast to more than double from 1.2 million in 2010, to 2.8 million by 2015 according to the latest World Wealth Report by Bank Julius Baer. China alone is expected to have $8.8 trillion in HNWI wealth and 1.4 million affluent individuals by 2015.

Earlier this year the bank announced the new appointments of de Ferrari and Kreis. Kreis starts as chairman of private banking Asia-Pacific, effective January 1 2012. 

Wealth management in Asia has been one of Credit Suisse' fastest growing divisions, where net new money has soared by around a fifth every year for the last three years. Since 2008, net new assets have totalled CHF36 billion in Asia, contributing to more than 25 per cent of global client inflows.