HONG KONG >> Nomura Holdings Inc plans to hire more wealth management bankers in Dubai, Hong Kong and Singapore – part of a huge push it is making to boost wealth assets outside of Japan to $35 billion by next year.

The Japanese bank expects to add three or four relationship managers in Dubai by the end of this year to its current headcount there of 10, Ravi Raju, Nomura’s head of International Wealth Management (IWM), told Reuters.

He added that Nomura plans to hire 30 to 35 bankers in the next two years and split them equally between the Asian wealth hubs of Hong Kong and Singapore, which currently have around 50 and 40 bankers respectively, he said.

Nomura has not previously detailed its hiring plans for the Middle East and Asia by location.

Raju said the bank was confident in achieving its $35 billion target, which represents a 46% jump from its current level of $24 billion for wealth assets outside of Japan.

“Current business momentum indicates that IWM doesn’t see any impediment to achieve its medium-term plan,” said Raju, who has led the division since 2020 when he joined Japan’s biggest investment bank and brokerage from UBS.

Like many other financial firms, Nomura has been trying to push deeper into wealth management, which accounted for roughly half of its pretax income in the past financial year.

The business is seen as more stable than trading which is closely tied to how markets perform. Nomura, however, faces tough competition from bigger global wealth managers who have also been expanding in Hong Kong, Singapore and the Middle East. Nomura is a relative latecomer to Dubai, having only opened a branch about a year ago.

“The whole region has seen tremendous amount of growth… it (Dubai) has been the biggest area of growth in any international centres out there,” Raju said.

Raju said Nomura was able to jumpstart its wealth management business in Dubai as the market there had expanded and there was ample talent to tap from other global financial firms.

For its wealth business outside of Japan, Nomura focuses on bringing in entrepreneurs as clients by leveraging the bank’s global markets and investment banking businesses, he said.

The bank’s IWM business generated $14 billion in net new money from clients and opened around 2,000 new accounts over the last three years, Raju said.

It has managed to expand its client network by tapping into demand for making investments in Japan. The benchmark Nikkei stock market index is up 15% this year, after having surged 28% last year.

The attractive dollar-yen rate has also offered “very good value point for customers to invest into Japan”, Raju said.