The idea of such a partnership was mentioned by Boris Collardi, CEO of the bank, in an in interview with Bloomberg.

“We’re looking at different alternatives,” Collardi was quoted as saying. “The model is something we’re going to try to roll out to market,” he said.

The bank has already made the Asia region a high priority. Among recent developments, a few days ago it hired a team head for its newly-created Japan desk in Singapore. It also added to the business development team of an asset management business, in which it has a stake, in Tokyo. Separately, in October the bank announced plans to issue perpetual tier one subordinated bonds in a benchmark-sized volume, to be listed on the Singapore Exchange. The firm said it would be the first foreign banking institution to issue such bonds directly in the Singapore market.

Julius Baer is aiming at expansion in a country where, according to its own research, millionaire wealth is expected to rise at an average rate of around 12 per cent a year to $8.25 trillion by 2020. Other figures have underscored this point: the Chinese mainland had 596 US-dollar billionaires, up by 242 from last year, Hurun Report, which ranks wealth in Asia, said recently. That figure compared with 537 billionaires in the US, and 119 in Hong Kong and Taiwan combined, it said. The company's annual list of China's richest people, released in Shanghai at the weekend, also found that 1,877 mainland entrepreneurs were worth at least RMB2 billion each - 606 more than last year.

Collardi reportedly did not name any specific firms that he was targeting in the interview. He would consider investing in local companies that don’t have “typical banking models”, such as financial-technology businesses, he said.