Chennai: The Bangalore headquartered ING Vysya Bank Limited has set itself an ambitious target of meeting $1 billion of assets under managing (AuM) under its recently launched private banking service.

Justifying the target Samir Bimal, country head, private banking said, "We have the platform for offering advisory on direct equity, derivatives, mutual funds, bonds, structured deals and real estate funds for wealthy individuals, families and institutions like trusts, small enterprises."

The bank would also target the Indians and people of Indian origin living abroad as their remittances are high.

The Dutch banking group has traditionally offered this service globally for several decades. The bank has over 70,000 customers and assets under management of over €60 billion.

Launching the private banking service in Chennai on Saturday Vaughn Richtor, CEO, said the country has good number of wealthy individuals and we look to service this segment.

Rolling out the service in Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, Kolkata the bank will launch the same in Hyderabad next week. One bank branch in each of these cities has been selected to offer the premium service.

"The locations have been selected based on the tax collections, changing demographic and economic profile," Bimal added.

Speaking about the reasons for choosing Chennai he said, the city is getting good inflow of professionals - IT and others. In addition there are rich families and trusts.

ING Vysya Bank would offer the private banking service to those having investible resources of Rs4 crore or more.

"The kind of expectations and demands of these investors are different from what investors with a lower investing capacity demand," says Bimal.

According to him, people with that investment kitty do not look for short-term appreciation. "They may be evaluating a private equity investment proposal."

ING Vysya Bank''s fee for the private banking service depends on the area of advice it offers. "In the case of equity investment the fee rate would range between 1 - 3.5 per cent per annum," said Richtor.

The bank has a 50-member team for this service and plans are afoot to increase the number. Each private banker is expected to service around 30-35 customers.

According to Bimal, the private banking business cannot be ramped up in increasing the head count alone.

"We are looking for experienced people in capital markets adept in cultivating enduring relationships. The people should be passionate about private banking," he said.

The catchment areas for such persons are stock broking houses, corporate banking departments.

On choosing a private banker, Bimal advices that investors should get satisfactory answers for the questions like: (a) How much of my requirements would a private banker would be able address? (b) What is the credibility of the advice? and (c) How transparent is their fee rates?

Meanwhile the bank is planning to expand its branch network by 50 more taking to total to 500 branches soon.

"We will increase the headcount by 1,000," said Richtor.

According to him the bank is planning to raise Rs350 crore to meet the capital adequacy norms given the bank''s targets and the manner in which the business is growing.