Citi plans to more than double its team for high-end private banking business in China in one year to target the country's growing number of millionaires, the lender said today.

The New York-based financial giant plans to open another office for private banking in Guangzhou this year to serve the super rich after opening offices in Shanghai in March 2006, and Beijing in May this year.

Hangzhou will be the next target due to its sound base of entrepreneurs, Andrew Tung, managing director of Citi Private Banking in China said.

Citi boasts the biggest network of private banking business on the Chinese mainland among overseas lenders.

Citi now has 13 client relationship managers for its private banking business in Shanghai and Beijing . The figure will at least double in 12 months, Tung said.

``China is the key for Citi's private banking business in 2007 and 2008, and our internal target for growth is quite aggressive,'' he said.

The majority of its clients are the nouveau riche in their 30s or 40s, Citi said earlier.

The Chinese mainland last year was home to 345,000 people who had a net worth of at least US$1 million, up from 2005's 320,000, said a report by Capgemini SA and Merrill Lynch & Co.

Tung declined to disclose client numbers and assets under management in China. Citi has private banking business in 11 countries in the Asia-Pacific region with assets under management topping US$70 billion for more than 6,000 high net worth people.

The shortage of experienced talent is one of the bottlenecks for its expansion plans. Private bankers will have at least one-week of overseas orientation or training before serving the demanding millionaires.

Citi forayed into China's nascent private banking business in March 2006 in Shanghai with a client assets threshold of US$10 million.

Bank of China (stock code: 601988) and China Merchants Bank (stock code: 600036) have already kicked off private banking business in affluent areas such as Shanghai, Beijing and Shenzhen with an assets threshold of US$1 million.