The bottleneck in private banking, which has until recently made it difficult to prise relationship managers from their positions, is starting to ease.

Demand for private bankers has increased in the last three months on the back of rising client confidence.

With markets improving and large scale retrenchments a thing of the past, cautious RMs now have the stable environment they need to move firms without fear of being fired.

“Bankers were perhaps unwilling to move earlier in the year as some banks were still laying off people, therefore they didn’t want to make the jump and then be a victim of a last-in, first-out policy,” says Jack Bennett, director of search firm Lion Rock International.

The news that RMs are becoming more open to new opportunities will please the growing gang of Swiss private banks – such as EFG, Julius Baer and Pictet & Cie – which are expanding their headcounts in Asia to take advantage of the region’s potential for wealth creation.

While the assets of Asia-Pacific millionaires slumped 22 per cent to $7.4tn in 2008, their wealth will surpass those of North Americans by 2013, according to a survey by Merrill Lynch and Capgemini.

Early this month EFG said it would like to increase its 160-member Asian team by as much as 30 per cent over the next three years.

The bank and its Swiss rivals are mainly targeting experienced relationship managers from larger US and European firms. EFG, for example, has recently recruited Nigel Sze from Citi Global Wealth Management as head of private banking.

So despite the slight rise in hiring, this is still not a great time to break into private banking. “Unlike in 2006/2007, we don’t see a mad rush to hire bankers from different experiences to move into the sector. It’s now about whether you are able to move a book of clients to your new organisation,” comments Gary Lai, manager, financial services at Robert Walters.