Bank turfs 30 in the name of "a more integrated" wealth-management offering. In 2006, Singapore and Hong Kong were focal points of a fight between foreign private banks and brokerages for wealth-management talent. Now U.K.-based Barclays, a late but aggressive entrant to the race for Asian wallet share, is pink-slipping 30 staffers in those centers as it folds its comercial-bank-oriented "Wealth Intermediaries" unit into its Barclays Wealth private-banking business.

It has been decided

The Wealth Intermediaries provides advice on products and services to executives of Barclays' corporate customers.

"It has been decided that the businesses of Wealth Intermediaries and International Private Bank will be brought together and provide a more integrated Barclays Wealth offering to our clients," a spokesman for Barclays told Reuters.

This is the first example of Barclays downsizing its Asian wealth-management business, according to media reports.

Barclays, which has created nearly 1,800 new wealth-management positions since early 2006 as part of an expansion in Europe and a push into Asia, recently hired ex-Citigroup private-client executive Steve Wong to lead of its Hong Kong-based investment specialists group. More recently still, it made former Merrill Lynch Steve Fedor "front office" COO for its private-banking business in its Middle Eastern and North African regions. -FWR

Purchase reproduction rights to this article.