The predecessor has worked in the private banking sector for more than 30 years.

Credit Suisse has appointed a new head of wealth management for Thailand, taking effect from 20 March. Natt Thanomsat, based in Bangkok, will take over from Ms Thippa Praneeprachachon, who is retiring after more than three decades in the private banking sector. She joined Credit Suisse in June 2016.

Natt will lead the team of investment planners and report to Marcus Slöör, market group head for Thailand and Vietnam, private banking South Asia, and locally to Chris Prasertsintanah, Thailand country manager.

The bank said that Ms Thippa will continue to support it as a senior advisor for its wealth management franchise in Thailand.

Prior to joining Credit Suisse, Natt was at Citi Thailand where he was the head of Thailand equities and head of sales at Citicorp Securities. He has more than 15 years of experience in financial services in Singapore and Thailand with JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs. Prior to joining the financial industry, Natt had a successful engineering career at major technology companies in the US.

The bank's involvement in Thailand has been going on for some time. Credit Suisse Securities Thailand, part of the Swiss group, aims to continue focusing its business strategy towards wealth management to capture ample growth opportunities in the local market, which has a wealth valuation of 16.7 trillion baht ($5.12 billion), one of its senior figures said in September last year.

Credit Suisse was the first global bank to launch international wealth management services out of Bangkok in May 2016 under Credit Suisse Securities Thailand.

Credit Suisse is far from the only bank seeing Thailand as a wealth management opportunity. As reported in March last year, Swiss private banking group Julius Baer and Siam Commercial Bank, a Thailand-based group, signed an agreement to establish a joint venture focusing on offering wealth management services to Thai clients.

Thailand’s overall wealth market is estimated to be around $300 billion, with a rapidly growing population of high net worth individuals of approximately 30,000, according to the BCG Global Wealth Report 2017.