The Mexican arm of Dutch financial services giant ING is betting that its new wealth-management division will help it to double the assets it manages on behalf of individuals as its compulsory retirement-savings business reaches maturity, the Wall Street Journal reports.

"Our objective is in five years to double the 143.5 billion pesos ($11.1 billion) we had at the end of last year," said Lourdes Arana, chief executive of ING Mexico's wealth-management unit, in an interview.

The new division, which started operations in January with an advertising campaign focused on attracting voluntary retirement savings, will be a major contributor to that growth, Ms Arana said.

The article did not clarify whether by the term “wealth management” it was in fact referring to handling the affairs of mass affluent savers rather than high net worth individuals.

ING's wealth-management division will initially sell the voluntary savings accounts that ING Afore currently offers to its five million clients, and starting in the second quarter it will expand its product offering to include ING's mutual funds, Ms Arana said.