Barclays Wealth, while new to the Hong Kong market, is hoping to double its assets under management in North Asia in the next three years.
The expansion comes at a time when many of the leading private banks are still trying to break-even or are losing money.
It is part of Barclays' larger ambition to build its private banking business. Last year, the bank's board allocated GBP350 million (HK$4.3 billion) to Barclays Wealth chief executive Thomas Kalaris to expand the business.
The bank does not disclose its figures for North Asia - which includes the mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan - but Pakorn Boonya-Kurkul, Barclays Wealth's head of North Asia, said that based on industry standards, a relationship manager needed to have at least US$200 million in assets under management to make it a profitable business.
According to industry estimates, the bank has about 100 relationship managers in the region, and Asia- Pacific contributes about 10 to 15 per cent (or GBP17 billion to GBP25.5 billion) of global assets of GBP170 billion.
While the high-end market is growing in North Asia, private banks have found the market difficult to penetrate, as costs rise and clients have less appetite for complex products that carry higher margins.
The average cost-to-income ratio for private banking firms in Hong Kong and Singapore stood at 97 per cent last year, 23 percentage points higher than firms in Switzerland, a PricewaterhouseCoopers survey, released in September, shows.