More top UBS Asian staff join Barclays Wealth

Barclays Wealth, the private banking arm of the high street lender, has poached another three senior executives from rival UBS's Asian operations to add to the 10 it recruited last summer.

Vikram Malhotra, who led a team of UBS bankers in Singapore and Hong Kong, joined Barclays Wealth today as head of South Asia. Two other ex-UBS bankers, Jagdish Kale and Rohit Nanani, will join
Barclays as directors later this month.

Asia's private banking industry, which saw large job losses at the end of 2008 and early 2009, has recovered in recent months and banks are desperately searching for experienced staff to tap the region's growing ranks of millionaires.

In October, RBS Coutts, the private banking arm of Royal Bank of Scotland, lost more than 70 of its staff in Singapore, mainly to Swiss banks.