(Reuters) - Citigroup Inc said on Tuesday it planned to hire 100 wealth management staff in Australia in the next three years to lure more high net worth clients.
The hiring is part of an effort to triple the number of wealth management clients in Australia, Citigroup said.
Australia has the third-biggest population of high net worth individuals in the Asia Pacific region, with more than 230,000 people with A$1 million ($795,800) to invest, said Gonzalo Luchetti, Citigroup's head of Asia-Pacific retail banking.
"There is opportunity for Citi Australia to leverage its global brand awareness in the region and capture a larger share of this group," Luchetti said in a statement.
The new hiring comes after Citigroup's Australian wealth management unit's 14 percent rise in assets under management in 2016, the company said.
In Australia, Citigroup serves over a million customer accounts and 900 corporate accounts. In Asia Pacific, it is aiming for "mid-teen growth" in its number of clients in 2017, it said.
(Reporting by Christina Martin in Bengaluru; Editing by Byron Kaye and Gopakumar Warrier)
